psych: 

LIBRARY 


THE   ONE  WAY 


THE  ONE  WAY 


BY 


JANE   REVERE  BURKE 


•  •  i  *»'. ,'   ^ 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  AND  COMPANY 

68 1  Fifth  Avenue 


Copyright  1922,  by       4;jBiiARY^ 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANYeuu::. 

PStC'.l. 

All  Rights  Reserved  LlBRARl 


First  Printing   -   Dec,   1921 
Second  Printing  -  June,  1923 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PRELIMINARY  NOTE 

npHE  message  which  is  the  important  part  of 
^  this  book  came  through  Mrs.  Burke,  a  Bos- 
ton lady,  well  known  to  many  people  as  of  admir- 
able character  and  unquestioned  veracity.  She 
tells  in  her  Afterword  how  it  came.  She  believes 
it  to  have  been  imparted  to  her  by  William  James, 
who  died  in  1910.  When  her  manuscript  came 
into  my  hands,  apparently  by  chance,  for  ex- 
amination, it  seemed  to  me  not  of  exceptional 
importance  as  a  spiritist  document,  but  of  decided 
interest  as  a  religious  document.  That  is  to  say, 
I  thought  the  story  of  the  process  by  which  the 
automatic  writing  was  done,  though  interesting 
and  important  as  an  introduction  to  what  followed 
it,  had  been  more  fully  and  persuasively  told  in 
other  books,  but  I  thought  the  substance  of  the 
discourses  which  make  up  most  of  the  book  was 
remarkable  and  very  useful,  especially  in  its  bear- 
ing on  the  present  world-crisis,  and  that  it  should 
be  brought  to  the  notice  of  seekers  after  truth. 
Failing  to  find  a  publisher  disposed  to  publish 
it,  I  concluded,  with  the  author's  consent,  to  have 


•-  o.  <r^  i'  -■  '  f* 


vi  Preliminary  Note 

It  put  into  type  for  private  distribution.  A  thou- 
sand copies  were  printed  and  have  been  widely 
distributed,  and  have  interested  so  many  people, 
and  stirred  so  strong  a  call  for  a  more  extended 
circulation,  that  the  present  publication  has  been 
undertaken.  In  reading  and  rereading  the  proofs 
for  it,  I  have  been  more  impressed  than  ever  with 
the  remarkable  quality  of  the  message  and  its  time- 
liness in  present  affairs. 

I  have  found  some  of  the  automatic  books 
both  Interesting  and  edifying,  and  for  that 
reason  was  the  more  willing  to  assist  in  bringing 
this  one  to  print.  It  is  very  slightly  edited ;  books 
of  this  derivation  being,  I  think,  better  adapted 
for  examination  and  the  exercise  of  judgment  on 
their  validity,  when  their  seeming  imperfections 
and  digressions  are  left  in  them.  The  discourses 
given  as  coming  from  the  late  William  James, 
were  originally  printed  without  consultation  with 
any  member  of  Doctor  James's  family.  That 
seemed  the  most  considerate  way  to  do.  If  they 
came  out  of  the  invisible  world  in  which  those 
whom  we  call  "dead''  continue  their  activities, 
they  are  not  subject  to  the  same  control  that  has 
charge  of  what  Doctor  James  wrote  while  still, 
as  we  say,  ''alive."     Whether  they  did  so  come 


Preliminary  Note  vii 

Is  a  matter  for  individual  judgment,  the  substance 
of  the  discourses  being,  I  should  say,  the  main 
basis  of  opinion. 

They  are  pubHshed  now  without  endorsement 
from  anyone  who  has  authority  to  speak  for  Doctor 
James.  Indeed,  those  who  were  nearest  him  in 
life  do  not  believe  that  he  was  the  source  of  Mrs. 
Burke's  inspiration,  but  since  various  mediums  have 
published  messages  that  purported  to  come  from 
him,  they  have  not  wished  to  object  to  the 
publication  of  this  one. 

As  evidence  that  Doctor  James,  and  not  Mrs. 
Burke,  was  the  real  author  of  the  discourses  said 
to  be  communicated,  passages  were  written  in  al- 
leged Greek  and  other  passages  in  alleged  Rus- 
sian. These  passages,  and  the  mention  of  them, 
have  been  omitted,  partly  because  it  has  not  been 
possible  as  yet  to  make  anything  out  of  them,  and 
partly  because  the  thing  of  real  moment  seemed 
the  substance  of  the  discourses. 

Thirty-seven  years  ago,  In  a  letter  written  in 
1884  to  Thomas  Davison,  Doctor  James  said: 

I  confess  I  rather  despair  of  any  popular  re- 
ligion of  a  philosophic  character,  and  I  sometimes 
find  myself  wondering  whether  there  can  be  any 
popular  religion  raised  on  the  ruins  of  the  old 


viii  Preliminary  Note 

Christianity  without  the  presence  of  that  element 
which  in  the  past  has  presided  over  the  origin  of 
all  religions — namely,  a  belief  in  new  physical 
facts  and  possibilities.  Abstract  considerations 
about  the  soul  and  the  reality  of  a  moral  order 
will  not  do  in  a  year  what  the  glimpse  into  a  world 
of  new  phenomenal  possibilities  enveloping  those 
of  the  present  life,  afforded  by  an  extension  of 
our  insight  into  the  order  of  nature,  would  do  in 
an  instant  Are  the  much-despised  "Spiritualism" 
and  the  "Society  for  Psychical  Research"  to  be 
chosen  instruments  for  a  new  era  of  faith?  It 
would  surely  be  strange  if  they  were;  but  if  they 
are  not,  I  see  no  other  agency  that  can  do  the 
work. 

Something  of  what  he  came  to  think  about  auto- 
matic writing  appears  in  the  following  extract 
from  an  article  he  wrote  for  the  American  Mag- 
azine in  1909,  the  year  before  he  died.  (The 
italics  are  his)  : 

The  first  automatic  writing  I  ever  saw  was  forty 
years  ago.  I  unhesitatingly  thought  of  it  as  de- 
ceit, although  it  contained  vague  elements  of  super- 
normal knowledge.  Since  then  I  have  come  to 
see  in  automatic  writing  one  example  of  a  depart- 
ment of  human  activity  as  vast  as  it  is  enigmatic. 
Every  sort  of  person  is  liable  to  it,  or  to  some- 


Preliminary  Note  ix 

thing  equivalent  to  it,  and  whoever  encourages  It 
In  himself  finds  himself  personating  some  one 
else,  either  signing  what  he  writes  by  a  fictitious 
name,  or  spelling  out,  by  ouija  board  or  table 
tips,  messages  from  the  departed.  Our  subcon- 
scious region  seems,  as  a  rule,  to  be  dominated 
either  by  a  crazy  "will  to  make-believe,"  or  by 
some  curious  external  force  Impelling  us  to  per- 
sonation. The  first  difference  between  the  psy- 
chical researcher  and  the  Inexpert  person  Is  that 
the  former  realizes  the  commonness  and  typicality 
of  the  phenomenon  here,  while  the  latter,  less 
informed,  thinks  It  so  rare  as  to  be  unworthy  of 
attention.  /  wish  to  go  on  record  for  the  com- 
monness. 

The  next  thing  I  wish  to  go  on  record  for  is 
the  presence,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  humbug,  of 
really  supernormal  knowledge.  By  this  I  mean 
knowledge  that  cannot  be  traced  to  the  ordinary 
sources  of  information — the  senses,  namely,  of 
the  automatlst. 

Hardly,  as  yet,  has  the  surface  of  the  facts 
called  "psychic"  begun  to  be  scratched  for  scien- 
tific purposes.  It  Is  through  following  these  facts, 
I  am  persuaded,  that  the  greatest  scientific  con- 
quests of  the  coming  generation  will  be  achieved. 

The  surface  has  been  scratched  a  great  deal 
since  Doctor  James  died  and  the  Great  War  tore 


X  Preliminary  Note 

up  the  world  and  agitated  the  souls  of  men.  Such 
automatic  books  as  now  abound  would  doubtless 
have  caught  his  practiced  attention.  I  cannot  im- 
agine that  he  would  have  objected  to  having  this 
one  made  available  to  readers. 

Edward  S.  Martin. 


AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

XT OTHING  would  induce  me  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  this  book  if  I  didn't  hope  that 
through  it  some  people  might  find  God;  not 
through  some  new  channel  of  spiritualism,  but 
through  the  one  old  channel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Way.  I  feel  very  sure  that  if  it  were  not  for  the 
particular  mood  of  the  world  to-day  I  might  have 
written  this  book  exactly  as  I  have,  but  without 
realizing  that  it  was  being  done  by  automatic 
writing — simply  believing  that  I  was  inspired.  Of 
myself  alone  I  could  never  have  written  a  book; 
the  manual  labor  of  ordinary  writing  is  to  me  so 
irksome  that  I  should  never  have  undertaken  it, 
much  less  put  it  through. 

I  would  not  have  anyone  think  that  I  believe 
that  spiritualism  should  be  substituted  for  the 
revelation  of  the  Bible.  I  believe,  with  St.  Paul, 
that  Christ  is  the  final  revelation.  It  seems  to  me 
wholly  compatible  with  what  we  know  of  our 
Heavenly  Father,  who  is  Love,  that  He  should  be 
willing  to  permit,  especially  at  this  time,  when  such 
hosts  of  young  people  have  passed  over,  a  new 


XI 


xii  Author's  Foreword 

consciousness  of  the  unseen  world,  to  His  foolish 
children  whose  hearts  have  become  blinded 
through  materialism.  I  believe  that  the  spiritual 
way  is  the  only  right  way.  I  have  come  to  be- 
lieve that  automatic  writing  can  be  a  spiritual  way. 
I  believe  that  anyone  who  is  resorting  to  spiritual- 
ism or  spiritism  for  curiosity  or  idleness,  is  com- 
mitting sin. 

When  I  had  been  writing  about  a  month,  Mr. 
James  wrote  the  following: 

You  know  that  the  language  you  and  I  use  is 
the  thought  language,  and  you  perceive  the 
thought  before  the  pencil  gets  it  down.  I  was 
appointed,  as  I  told  you  before,  to  work  with  you 
for  months  before  you  began  to  write;  I  stood  by 
your  side  as  an  earthly  friend  might  have  done, 
and  helped  you;  you  were  in  a  very  open  state 
of  mind — we  call  it  fluid — through  prayer,  and 
your  desire  to  help  your  child;  I  was  able  to  get 
at  your  mind.^    Now,  what  is  called  possession  by 

*Oii  July  6th,  W.  J.  wrote  the  following  in  answer  to  my 
question  {'*JVhy  do  I  knoiv  nuhat  the  pencil  is  going  to  luritef")  : 
"Because  you  can  hear  the  thought  language.  Also  I  have  been 
working  with  you  half  the  winter." 

{"Hoiv  did  you  come  to  ivork  ivith  me?") 

"Do  you  remember  that  day  you  were  with  Q.  in  the  back 
room,  and  said  that  you  thought  God  might  be  preparing  you 
for  some  special  work?" 


Author's  Foreword  xiii 

a  devil,  is  a  similar  thing;  a  human  being  through 
evil  thoughts  or  deeds  opens  his  mind  to  some  evil 
man  or  spirit,  and  does  it  over  and  over  again 
until  the  evil  spirit  possesses  him.  The  reasons 
that  you  do  not  stand  in  danger  of  my  obtaining 
undue  control  over  you  are  threefold.  God  is  pro- 
tecting you  by  your  desire,  your  husband's  present 
work  is  to  protect  you,  and  I  do  not  want  to  obtain 
undue  control.  It  would  be  deterrent,  and  I  don't 
stand  for  that  purpose.  .  .  . 

I  have  never  liked  to  think  of  my  dear  ones  who 
have  passed  through  death,  as  being  constantly 
about  me.  That  has  seemed  to  me  a  chaining 
them  to  our  little  life,  which  I  find  wholly  repug- 
nant. Difficult  as  It  is  for  us  with  our  present 
limitations  to  take  in  that  there  is  no  time  in 
Eternity,  it  is  yet  a  thought  that  has  long  been 
very  familiar  to  us.  In  our  earthly  life  we  occa- 
sionally touch  this  law  of  Eternity,  when  under 
some  great  stress  a  moment  is  lengthened  Into 

{"Yes.") 

**Well,  you  opened  a  mental  door  then  and  God  sent  me  to 
work  -with  you  and  help  sustain  you  in  the  strain  of  your 
daughter's  illness,  and  I  was  constantly  at  hand,  and  helped.'* 

{"You  understand  that  I  <work  only  in  God's  service  and  to 
do  His  holy  ivillf") 

"Yes,  my  dear  woman,  I  wouldn't  have  anything  to  do  with 
you  if  you  were  not  heart  and  soul  given  over  to  His  holy 
service." 


xiv  Author's  Foreword 

hours,  or  days  or  months  seem  but  as  a  passing 
instant. 

Still  more  impossible  to  take  in  is  the  practical 
annihilation  of  space.  Yet  we  know  in  a  very 
actual,  a  very  real,  if  not  exactly  material  way, 
that  the  wireless  message  does  annihilate  space. 
Still  more  in  those  instances  of  a  telepathic  call 
from  one  person  living  on  earth  to  another  person 
far  away,  yet  living  on  earth — of  which  many  in- 
controvertible instances  are  extant. 

In  the  light  of  this  thought  it  seems  easy  to  un- 
derstand that  those  of  our  dear  ones  who  are 
gone  before,  while  habitually  at  work  doing  God's 
will  far  away,  might  at  need  be  instantly  by  our 
sides. 

The  old  prayer  against  "evil  thoughts  that  may 
assault  and  hurt  our  souls" — what  are  they  but  the 
thought  language  of  heaven  perverted  and  used 
by  evil  spirits.  St.  Paul  says,  "For  we  wrestle 
not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  principal- 
ities, against  powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the 
spiritual  wickedness  of  this  world." 

There  is  so  much  that  I  do  not  know  that  I  am 
willing  to  concede  that  it  is  possible — though  I 
don't  believe  it — that  men  have  seen  with  their 
fleshly  eyes  ghosts — the  spirits  of  the  departed. 


Author's  Foreword  xvt 

It  seems  to  me  much  greater  to  have  perceived 
with  the  spirit  the  nearness  of  the  departed,  with 
an  absolute  certainty  which  no  gainsaying  is  able 
to  controvert.  There  is  no  power  on  earth  that 
could  persuade  me  against  my  certainty  that  on  a 
certain  morning  my  husband  came  and  spoke  to 
me  the  one  word  of  comfort  that  was  essential 
to  my  being  able  to  go  on  and  keep  my  balance. 
I  saw  no  form  with  my  eyes,  I  heard  no  word, 
yet  I  know  that  his  spirit  spoke  to  my  spirit,  and 
in  the  strength  of  that  certainty  I  traveled  many 
months  and  days.  I  have  had,  during  a  period  of 
many  years,  a  few  similar  experiences.  I  grew 
to  realize  that  they  were  governed  by  one  law.  I 
never  perceived  my  husband's  nearness  or  received 
his  directions  except  when  I  was  living  to  the 
highest  that  I  knew — very  close  to  God. 

The  experience  of  automatic  writing  is  an  abso- 
lutely extraordinary  one.  No  one  who  has  been 
through  it  can  question  the  certainty  of  a  control 
outside  themselves.  Yet  I  have  become  convinced 
that  the  control  (I  have  to  use  this  term,  though 
I  don't  like  it)  never  touches  the  pencil.  I  feel 
sure  that  the  contact  between  the  amanuensis  and 
the  control  can  be  wholly  spiritual,  and  that 
though  it  may  be  only  psychic  it  is  never  material. 


xvi  Author's  Foreword 

The  material  is  always  lower  than  the  spiritual, 
and  art  than  nature.  Yet  the  finished  athlete, 
at  first  endowed  with  his  great  bodily  strength, 
travels  through  art  back  to  nature,  before  he 
reaches  his  highest  perfection.  The  great  singer, 
with  his  great  God-given  gift,  must  also  travel 
through  art  back  to  nature;  and  I  believe  that, 
correctly  understood,  the  present  wave  of  com- 
munication with  the  unseen  world  is  but  another 
example  of  traveling  through  art  back  to  nature. 
I  was  told  by  Mr.  James,  "You  have  been  receiv- 
ing thoughts  both  good  and  bad  all  through  the 
ages."  Now,  if  this  is  true.  Is  it  not  a  great  step 
in  advance  to  do  it  consciously,  Intelligently? 

One  element  in  automatic  writing  that  is  tre- 
mendously convincing,  to  the  person  who  receives 
it,  is  the  way  that  the  pencil  crosses  out  both 
verbal  mistakes  and  whole  sentences.  There  are 
statements  In  this  book  that  I  would  not  dare 
make  In  my  own  person.  Some  of  these  are  in 
complete  accordance  with  my  own  personal  and 
private  belief  or  Interpretation  of  the  truth  of 
God  as  I  understand  it,  yet  I  should  hesitate  a 
long  time  before  I  published  them  on  my  own 
authority.  Others  are  utterly  beyond  my  knowl- 
edge, and  I  have  felt  great  awe  and  question  as 


Author's  Foreword  xvii 

I  have  perceived  my  hand  writing  them  out,  and 
many  times  I  have  feared,  lest  what  I  was  writing 
was  not  true  or  was  touching  some  profound  ques- 
tion, that  has  long  puzzled  sages.  I  can  only  say 
that  I  have  constantly  stopped,  and  repeated: 
''Father,  this  is  thy  pencil.  I  am  thy  child.  Do 
not  let  this  pencil  write  any  word  that  is  contrary 
to  thy  will."  If,  therefore,  any  of  my  readers  feel 
I  have  dared  to  tread  where  I  should  not,  I  can 
only  say  that  I  am  but  an  instrument,  and  if  I  have 
marred  the  message  on  receiving  it,  or  mangled 
it  through  the  limitations  of  my  development,  I 
am  sorry.    It  was  not  wilfully  done. 

As  I  have  progressed  in  this  automatic  writing 
I  have  become  convinced  that  the  contact  between 
me  and  the  control  is  a  wholly  spiritual  one,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  when  I  am  working  at  my 
best  the  contact  is  so  strong  that  the  pencil  is 
driven  like  lightning,  being  often  dug  into  the 
paper  and  almost  giving  me  the  sensation  of  being 
forced  to  write.^ 


^It  will  be  seen  from  the  afterword  that  at  first  I  thought 
there  was  direct  control  of  the  pencil. 

On  August  6th,  my  husband  wrote:  "I  can't  touch  the  pencil 
because  we  can't  touch  or  handle  those  things  that  have  no  real 
enduring  existence." 


xviii  Author's  Foreword 

We  all  know  that  many  of  our  actions  are 
automatic,  controlled  by  what  we  term  our  func- 
tional brain.  I  am  now  convinced  that  this  spirit- 
ual control  causes  my  hand  to  make  the  pencil 
write.  The  writing  of  different  controls  varies 
greatly. 

In  order  to  do  the  best  work,  I  find  it  necessary 
to  stop  very  frequently,  and  say,  "Father,  this  is 
thy  pencil,  I  am  thy  child,  I  am  dealing  with  a 
force  that  I  do  not  understand,  and  I  am  relying 
absolutely  on  thee  not  to  allow  this  pencil  to  write 
one  word  you  do  not  wish  to  have  written." 
Nevertheless,  I  am  obliged  to  keep  a  very  real 
rein  on  myself  not  to  intrude  my  ideas.  I  follow 
what  is  written  often  with  the  very  keenest  inter- 
est. You  will  see  that  in  the  course  of  the  writing 
I  have  been  very  much  troubled  at  knowing  be- 
forehand the  word  or  the  thought  that  the  pencil 
is  going  to  write.  When  I  reread  the  manuscript, 
to  prepare  it  for  typing,  I  came  on  long  passages 
which  I  have  no  remembrance  of  having  written. 
Since  this  whole  subject  of  automatic  writing  is  so 
much  before  the  mind  of  men  to-day  it  has  seemed 
to  me  worth  while  to  let  my  readers  inside  this 
sort  of  detail.  I  think  that  all  readers  of  these 
books  should  realize  that  those  who  receive  this 


Author's  Foreword  xix 

automatic  writing  are  liable  at  times  to  limit  the 
message  by  placing  the  barrier  of  their  own  ig- 
norance or  doubt  In  the  way  of  the  control/ 

In  a  passage  which  I  have  not  published,  Mr. 
James,  in  speaking  of  a  certain  book  automatically 
written,  said,  "It  is  a  fine  book,  with  a  very  im- 
portant message,  but  I  think  the  message  was 
limited  because  of  the  lack  of  spiritual  develop- 
ment of  the  person  who  received  it." 

It  is  essential  to  keep  very  much  on  the  alert^ 
for  an  interference,  otherwise  one  might  give  a 


^  {You  understand  hovi  much  people  are  questioning  about 
automatic  'writing — is  it  like  this?  You  think  to  me  the  thought, 
"Your  friend"  {meaning  the  one  ivho  is  staying  ivith  me)  and 
I  ivrite  her  name  doivn — you  give  it  into  my  mind  in  a  thought, 
I  receive  it  as  a  thought,  but  let  it  out  through  my  hand  and 
the  pencil  in  words,  saying,  "My  friend,  Mrs.  Wilson" — do  you 
get  ivhat  I  am  asking  about?) 

William  James's  control.  "You  have  it  exactly.  I  do  not 
know  the  name  of  your  friend.  I  see  in  your  mind,  as  in  a 
mirror,  that  you  are  thinking  of  one  certain  friend.  I  think 
a  thought  to  you  about  that  friend  and  you  write  down  her 
name.  A  man  who  has  a  series  of  bells  touches  a  given  button 
and  the  bell  attached  to  that  button  rings.  I  think  the  thought 
to  you  about  your  friend  and  you  write  out  her  name." 

{Is  it  not,  therefore,  easy  for  me  to  make  a  mistake  in  ivrit" 
ing  your  thought  into  human  language?) 

William  James's  control.  "Yes  and  no.  When  you  are  work- 
ing well,  you  put  my  thought  into  clear,  correct  human  language. 
When  you  grow  weary  you  may  cloud  the  meaning." 


XX  Author's  Foreword 

garbled  message.  Thus  far  I  believe  every  in- 
terference I  have  had  was  by  the  same  personality, 
and  the  way  that  she  gained  entrance  was  because 
of  a  state  of  mental  vagueness  on  my  part  from 
my  being  scattered  or  ''distrait,"  which,  of  course, 
was  deterrent. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preliminary  Note v 

Author's  Foreword xi 

Message   Purporting  to  be  from  Professor 
William  James 

CHAPTER 

I.    To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  it    .    .    .        i 

II.    The    Value    of    Certain   Philosophies; 

Both  of  the  East  and  of  the  West      20 

III.  Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints — and  Single- 

ness OF  Heart 39 

IV.  On    Cooperation    between    Those    on 

Earth  and  the  Departed    ....      54 

V.    The  Present  Crisis  is  not  Confined  to 

Earth 73 

VI.    The  Need  of  the  World  To-day  is  the 

Love  of  God  and  Religion      ...      86 

VII.    Of  Union  w^ith  God  the  One  Source  of 

ALL  Power 98 

Author's  Afterword 119 


ZZl 


THE  ONE  WAY 


CHAPTER  I 

To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It 

TULY  6th,  1920.  "The  message  which  comes 
to  you  In  this  book  Is  addressed  first  and  fore- 
most to  those,  my  old  pupils  and  friends,  to  whom 
a  message  from  me  will  come  with  greater  force 
than  if  It  came  w^ithout  my  name  attached  to  It. 
I  therefore  begin — I — William  James,  late  pro- 
fessor of  psychology  ^  at  Harvard  University, 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A.,  am  sending  you  this 
message.  While  I  was  on  earth — alive,  as  you  call 
It — I  thought  that  I  knew  a  lot,  but  now  that  I 
have  begun  to  learn  a  very  little  I  see  that  I  failed 
to  know  what  is  in  truth  about  the  most  essential 
thing  of  all — namely,  you  cannot  prove  by  your 
intellect  those  things  which  can  be  proved  only  by 
life.  I  mean  Jesus  Christ  said:  T  am  the  Way, 
the  Truth  and  the  Life.'  If  you  want  to  prove  the 
truth  of  the  gospels — the  New  Testament  record 


*From  1889  to  1897  his  title  was  Professor  of  Psychology.    See 
"The  Letters  of  William  James,"  Vol.  I.,  page  xix. 


2  The  One  Way 

of  the  life  of  Christ — there  Is  only  one  way  In 
which  it  can  be  done ;  that  is  by  living  it  out  in  your 
daily  life.  I  thought  that  I  could  reason  about  re- 
ligion and  I  neglected  the  simple  method  of  living 
the  religion  myself.  You  think  that  the  day  has 
gone  by  when  people  can  turn  to  their  Bibles,  and 
get  guidance  for  everyday  affairs  therefrom,  but  I 
tell  you,  read  your  Bible,  both  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New,  and  devour  them,  not  in  any  contro- 
versial spirit,  or  to  help  you  to  prove  this  or  that, 
but  read  it  for  the  practical  basis  of  every  part  of 
your  daily  lives.  Now  In  the  20th  century,  it  Is  the 
only  possible  solution  of  present-day  needs.  Let 
the  politicians  learn  to  read  their  Bibles.  You 
who  used  to  be — may  I  say  my  disciples — oh,  I  beg 
you  to  listen  to  me  now  and  obey  me.  Read  your 
Bibles.  *They  are  they  which  testify  of  me,'  Christ 
said,  referring  to  the  Old  Testament.  How  much 
more  then,  should  you  read  both  that  and  also  the 
New  Testament,  In  order  to  meet  your  present 
crisis.  All  that  was  said  in  *The  Seven  Purposes,' 
about  the  terrific  struggle  that  Is  coming,  only 
feebly  foreshadows  what  lies  ahead  of  us  all — us 
and  you.  You  must  let  us  Into  your  lives  and  work 
consciously,  clearly  with  us.  There  are  teachers 
who  can  and  will  teach  you  how  to  do  this.  Oh, 
throw  away  your  conservatism  that  you  are  so 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It      3 

proud  of  and  be  ready  to  take  the  necessary  for- 
ward path  with  us. 

"We  who  have  passed  through  that,  which  you 
call  death,  are  ten  thousand  times  more  alive  than 
we  were  upon  earth;  we  have  all  the  powers  that 
we  then  had,  intensified,  and  far  greater  and  more 
developed  powers,  of  which  I  will  tell  you  what 
I  can  later.  But  right  here  and  now,  let  me  tell 
you,  that  there  is  a  tremendous  lot  that  we  can't 
tell  you,  because  you  are  wholly  Incapable  of  tak- 
ing It  in  in  your  present  undeveloped  state.  How- 
ever, If  you  will  only  learn  to  be  fluid,  and  be 
willing  to  be  led  by  us,  you  can  be  told  all  that  is 
necessary  for  us,  those  with  you  and  those  here, 
who  stand  for  the  true  God,  to  work  together  for 
the  overthrow  of  the  powers  of  evil. 

"You  think  that  the  Great  War  was  a  terrible 
time.  I  tell  you,  it  is  as  nothing,  compared  to  what 
is  coming;  and  if  you  won't  help  us  and  let  us  help 
you,  the  race  will  be  held  back  for  centuries.  Oh, 
lay  aside  your  prejudices  and  help  us.  Men  have 
greatly  erred  in  trying  to  train  the  brain  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  other  faculties  and  you  must  stop  it  now. 
You  are  trying  to  train  the  body  and  to  some  ex- 
tent the  hands,  but  the  instincts  are  being  neg- 
lected. Who  do  you  think  teaches  the  birds  when 
to  migrate  each  year?    Who  do  you  think  teaches 


4  The  One  Way 

the  fish  where  to  spawn?    Who  do  you  think  has 
led  man  up  and  up  from  the  lowest  savagery? — 
God,  God,  God !    Who  do  you  think  would  teach 
you  and  all  the  men  and  women  of  today  if  you 
would  let  him?    God  Almighty.    He  has  so  made 
man  that  it  is  possible  for  him  to  'come  unto  him 
and  make  his  abode  with  him.'     Do  you  suppose 
that  Jesus  Christ  made  any  mistake  when  He  said 
that?     I  tell  you  He  did  not;  He  enunciated  one 
of  the  great  fundamental  truths  of  the  whole  uni- 
verse, and  now  at  the  end  of  nineteen  centuries, 
you  are  all  of  you  seeking  every  sort  of  way  to 
accomplish  the  salvation  of  the  human  race,  except 
the  one  and  only  way,  the  way  of  the  indwelling 
God — God  in  the  heart  and  soul  of  every  son  of 
man,  leading  and  guiding  him  all  the  time.     It  is 
so  simple  that  most  of  you  are  afraid  to  trust  your- 
selves to  anything  so  simple  and  so  easy  too,  if  you 
will  only  learn  to  yield  to  your  instinctive  knowl- 
edge. 

''You  all  speak  familiarly  of  your  consciences; 
the  true,  clear  conscience  of  a  child  speaks  clear 
and  straight  because  his  instincts  have  not  yet  been; 
blinded  and  stunted  by  education.  The  foolish- 
ness of  man,  made  the  form  of  education,  of  which 
you  are  so  proud.  Stop  it — that  is,  stop,  the  over- 
emphasis on  one  side,  of  man's  powers.     The  in- 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It      5 

tellect  and  the  Instincts;  the  body,  the  mind,  and 
the  spirit,  should  each  have  their  due  place; 
whereas,  your  present-day  education  overempha- 
sizes the  intellect.  Get  back  to  elemental  things; 
the  men  In  the  trenches  got  back  to  elemental  life, 
and  they  at  once  began  to  have  visions  and  to  see 
forms  about  them — and  those  forms  were  real — 
they  were  there. 

"I  tell  you  the  human  race  Is  one,  one,  one — 
write  large,  ONE,  and  we  who  are  ten  thousand 
times  as  much  alive  as  you  are,  are  able  to  help 
you  if  you  will  let  us  because  you  and  we  are  one. 
You  have  got  to  be  open  minded  and  train  your 
instincts  and  stop  trying  to  find  some  grand  new 
way,  and  go  back  to  the  old  way,  the  simple  Bible 
way. 

"Mrs.  B ,  you  go  to  bed  now.    I  can'*-  work 

with  you  any  more  to-night  because  the  next  part 
is  so  important,  and  you  must  be  fresh.  You  must 
perfect  the  mechanical  arrangements  because  such 
rapid  writing  Is  hard  on  your  arm.  You  don't 
know  how  tremendously  Important  the  book  Is  and 
you  will  have  to  work  many  hours  a  day.  It  must 
be  published  in  the  early  autumn." 

(You  made  a  mistake  and  told  me  the  other 
night  that  the  doctor  would  not  come  and  he 
walked  in.    I  had  not  asked  you  a  direct  question. 


6  The  One  Way 

though  I  was  wondering  if  he  would  come,  and 
though  I  know  those  details  have  no  spiritual  im^ 
portance,  they  are  upsetting  to  mere  human  intelli- 
gence.Y 

**Yes  my  dear  friend  but  we  expect  you  to  rise 
above  such  mistakes.  I  knew  that  your  boy  was 
not  seriously  ill  and  I  knew  you  needed  the  rest 
and  so  I  said  go  to  bed.  Now  you  have  got  to 
learn  to  distinguish  between  important  or  spiritual 
thought  messages  and  unimportant.  The  language 
of  heaven  is  the  thought  language  governed  by 
love.  Also  you  must  forgive  me  for  my  mistakes. 
I  too  am  just  human — a  little  more  advanced  than 
I  was  when  on  earth,  at  which  time  I  thought  I 
knew  a  lot;  now  I  know  that  I  know  nothing." 

July  nth.  {It  is  hard  for  me  to  balance  the 
ordinary  daily  duties  and  the  call  to  this  new 
work,  which  is  exciting  and  interesting.) 

"Well  then,  pray;  you  understand  that;  do  it. 
God  as  you  know  wants  to  help  at  every  second 
of  your  life. 

"One  of  the  most  serious  dangers  of  this  time 
is  the  demand  for  scientific  proof  of  spiritual 
things.  My  friends,  science  must  have  scientific 
proof,  but  the  things  of  the  spirit  must  have  spir- 
itual proof  and  spiritual  proof  comes  only  from 


*  Throughout  this  book  the  italics  denote  that  Mrs.  Burke  is 
speaking. 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It      7 

living  the  Life,  and  If  you  will  accept  the  word  of 
tried  scientists  In  astronomy  or  any  other  of  the 
scientific  branches,  why  do  you  refuse  to  accept  the 
spiritual   dictum   of   those  who   are   proving   the 
things  of  the  spirit  by  the  Life.     Get  back  to  the 
elements;  drop  theological  discussions  and  stand- 
points and  get  back  to  first  principles.     Don't  Im- 
agine that  I  do  not  know  how  many  times  I  have 
said  that  same  thing,  but  I  am  writing  to  those  for 
whom  my  word  has  weight  and  I  have  to  repeat 
the  important  points  till  you  realize  that  you  must 
attend  to  what  I  am  trying  to  get  across  to  you. 
No  matter  what  church  you  belong  to,  work  shoul- 
der to  shoulder  with  every  force  that  is  making 
for  true  progress,  and  find  out  If  they  are  making 
for  true   progress,   by  measuring  them   up,   not 
against  some  standard  you  have  been  accustomed 
to   thinking   correct,    but   take    Christ    for   your 
standard.  He  is  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life; 
if  things  won't  measure  up  to  Him  cast  them  off. 
Now,  you  know  that  this  was  not  what  I  taught 
on  earth,  but  oh!  don't  make  any  mistake,  it  is  the 
only  way.     He  is  the  Way.     I  am  writing  like  a 
child,  but  all  truly  great  things  are  simple.     You 
must  help,  you  must  listen.     You  must  believe. 
One  of  the  reasons  why  the  messages  from  this 
side  seem  so  unsatisfactory  to  you,  is  that  many  of 
the  things  you  long  most  to  have  us  tell  you  are  the 


8  The  One  Way 

things  you  must  find  out  for  yourselves.  God  has 
already  provided  you  with  the  basic  data  from 
which  you  could  find  out,  and  it  would  weaken  your 
moral  fiber  if  we  told  you  those  things.  To  speak 
In  an  old-fashioned  phrase,  'It  is  not  allowed,'  that 
is  it  could  be  done  but  it  is  not  for  the  best  devel- 
opment of  the  race,  and  we  could  not  do  it  because 
here  we  want  to  do  God's  will  and  we  have  already 
learned  that  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  pushing  our 
wills.  Man  has  but  one  real  possession,  and  that 
gift  God  has  given  him,  his  free  will.  It  Is  a  God- 
like attribute  and  Is  to  be  reverenced  and  prized, 
but  while  it  is  the  most  essential  resemblance  to 
God — 'Man  made  in  the  image  of  God' — yet,  the 
first  thing  to  do  with  it,  is  to  give  it  back  to  Him 
and  say:  Thy  will  not  mine  be  done. 

"You  are  almost  all  of  you  under  trained  in 
what  I  call  making  an  act  of  will.  That  is  an- 
other thing  of  which  I  must  treat  at  length." 

(Mr.  James,  when  I  was  talking  to  Miss  Davis 
about  this — were  you  prompting  me?) 

"No,  not  at  all.  Of  course  I  have  been  trying 
to  familiarize  you  with  all  sorts  of  ideas,  and  try- 
ing to  teach  you  to  hear  and  understand  my 
thoughts,  and  this  Is  a  most  essential  truth,  and  I 
may  have  thought  to  you  (note  this  expression), 
thought  to  you,  not  talked  to  you  on  the  subject. 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It      9 

I  was  not  in  any  sense  prompting  you  when  you 
talked  to  her." 

{Did  you  know  that  I  talked  to  hcrf) 

"Yes,  I  did." 

Sunday,  July  I2th.  *'The  gist  of  the  whole  mat- 
ter is,  that  God  has  already  granted  unto  man  all 
the  revelation  that  is  actually  necessary  for  his  sal- 
vation, but  the  mass  of  men,  having  perverted 
their  freedom  and  used  their  free  will  to  follow  out 
their  own  ways,  have  blinded  themselves  and  can 
no  longer  easily  take  the  leading  God  has  given. 

"This  matter  of  automatic  writing  is  far  older 
than  you  suppose;  it  is  no  new  thing.  It  probably 
accounts  for  much,  in  fact  perhaps  for  nearly  all, 
of  what  we  call  inspired  literature. 

"Have  you  never  found  yourself  In  a  situation 
of  danger,  some  position  wholly  new  to  your  ex- 
perience, and  yet  in  a  second,  quicker  than  thought, 
you  knew  your  only  chance  was  to  follow  some  line 
of  escape?  Had  you  had  more  time  and  begun  to 
use  your  reason  and  think  out  what  you  ought  to 
do,  ten  to  one,  you  might  have  become  befogged 
and  done  the  wrong  thing.  As  It  was,  you  fol- 
lowed your  Instinct.  You  can  train  your  instincts 
just  as  you  train  a  voice  to  produce  a  singer.  It 
has  to  be  done.  There  are  certain  teachers  already 
at  work  In  this  matter  of  whom  the  most  success- 


10  The  One  Way 

ful  is  Roger  Vittoz  of  Lausanne.    He  himself  does 
not  go  far  enough,  and  realise  that  beyond  the  emi- 
nently scientific  method  he  has  worked  out,  lies  the 
absolute  reliance  on  God,  which  is  an  absolute  ne- 
cessity if  man  is  to  work  out  his  own  destiny.    And 
man  has  to  work  out  his  own  destiny.     God  will 
never  take  away  from  you  his  own  priceless  gift  of 
free  will.    You  must  say,  'Father,  I  have  but  one, 
real,   enduring,   everlasting,   possession,   my   free 
will ;  it  is  Thy  gift  to  me  and  I  will  take  it  and  give 
It  back  to  Thee,  and  do  Thy  perfect  will  which 
will  give  me  true  freedom.'    All  real  thinkers  know 
that  true  freedom  instantly  implies  discipline.     A 
free  country  is  not  one  where  every  man  is  free 
to  follow  out  his  own  will — you  do  not  permit 
the  Bolshevik  to  commit  crimes,  you  restrain  him 
by  laws  and  no  country  would  have  freedom  that 
had  no  restraining  laws.    Your  athlete  must  have 
the  most  careful  discipline  and  training  if  he  is  to 
obtain  the  true  freedom  which  will  gain  him  the 
mastery  over  his  own  body  and  win  him  the  race. 
"If  you  want  success  in  earthly  things  you  must 
work  for  it,  and  the  same  law  obtains  in  heavenly 
things;  you  have  to  cultivate  the  spiritual  and  in- 
stinctive side  of  your  nature  as  assiduously  as  if 
it  were  a  garden,  where  weeds  crop  up  and  grow 
with  most  astonishing  rapidity.    This  sounds  trite, 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It    ii 

but  I  have  to  make  the  whole  matter  commonplace 
and  practical.  Remember  what  I  was  as  you  knew 
me  on  earth,  searching  afar  off  for  the  explana- 
tions of  the  great  mysteries,  and  pay  attention  to 
what  I  say  now;  live  your  religion,  prove  its 
truth  in  your  everyday  life  and  don't  go  theorizing 
about  it.  It  is  w^hat  you  are,  not  what  you  think, 
that  counts. 

''God  has  implanted  deep  in  the  nature  of  every 
son  of  man  the  power  to  know  good  from  evil, 
and  you  must  exercise  your  free  will  and  choose 
the  good.  Remember  you  have  to  go  on  and  on 
choosing  the  good,  His  will,  and  laying  your  free 
will  back  into  his  hand,  and  you  will  have  to  go 
on  doing  it  to  the  end  of  your  earthly  life.  The 
process  of  learning  to  probe  deep  into  your  own 
nature,  is  for  you  at  present  difficult,  because  it 
involves  much  quiet  and  meditation,  a  thing  for 
which  both  the  pleasure  and  the  work  of  the  world 
to-day  leaves  but  little  time,  but  you  must  make 
the  time  for  it.  I  tell  you  from  this  side,  where  I 
know  a  great  deal  more  than  most  of  you  do  from 
your  side,  that  nothing  In  human  life  to-day  com- 
pares with  the  need  of  preparedness  for  the  great 
SDlrltual  battles  that  are  imminent.  America  was 
very  slow  about  preparedness  for  the  Great  War. 
In  God's   name,   heed  our  warnings   and  make 


12  The  One  Way 

preparations  for  the  far  greater  war  that  is  surely 
coming.  Most  of  you  are  not  single  hearted 
enough;  you  must  get  less  complex,  not  only  in 
your  external  lives  but  in  the  essential  you  Inside. 
Make  one  clear  choice  for  God  and  the  right,  and 
stop  splitting  hairs.  The  men  in  the  armies,  as  I 
have  said  before  and  as  everyone  knows,  got  down 
to  the  bare  essentials  and  you  must  do  the  same, — 
plain  food,  plain  clothes  and  no  waste  of  your 
essential  powers.  *How  long  halt  ye  between 
two  opinions?  If  the  Lord  be  God  follow  him, 
but  if  Baal  then  follow  him.*  I  want  to  put  this 
in  such  plain  language  that  a  baby  could  under- 
stand it,  but  it  is  worthy  of  the  practice  of  the  wis- 
est man  among  you.  Get  back  to  your  Bibles — 
because  *they  are  they  which  testify  of  me,'  as 
Christ  said,  and  you  must  get  back  to  the  one 
elemental  cause  of  all  things,  God  Almighty  the 
creator  of  the  Universe,  the  Father  of  mankind. 
Get  God  for  the  background  of  all  your  life  and 
all  your  thoughts,  get  him  for  the  centre  and  the 
kernel  of  your  whole  life.  *In  Him  we  live  and 
move  and  have  cur  being'  is  absolutely  true  just  as 
it  stands;  you  can't  love  your  wife  and  children 
except  that  God  in  you,  the  imminent,  indwelling 
God,  who  himself  is  love,  enables  you  to  do  so. 
Whatever  value  the  Bible  may  have  as  an  histor- 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It    13 

ical  record,  or  as  literature,  Its  true  value  Is  that  it 
shows  forth  God's  dealings  with  men  and  man's 
growing  relation  to  God.  God  made  man  In  his 
image.  He  made  him  to  be  His  own  companion. 
God  would  not  want  a  companion  who  was  unlike 
himself,  and  since  he  is  omnipotent,  omnipresent 
and  omniscient,  he  fills  man  with  his  own  power 
and  presence  and  wisdom,  always  provided  that 
the  Individual  chooses  God — ^lays  down  his  free 
will  and  says :  'I  have  my  one  God-given  eternal 
possession,  my  Godlike  quality  of  free  will;  I  lay 
it  down  voluntarily  to  do  the  Perfect  will  of  God.' 
When  a  man  does  that,  he  rises  into  a  far  greater 
degree  of  Godllkeness  or  becomes  far  more  fit 
to  be  the  companion  of  God  himself,  thus  fulfilling 
his  own  destiny.  Let  your  priests  and  teachers 
get  back  to  the  Bible  and  preach  Bible  sermons, 
simply  because  there  you  find  a  supreme  record  of 
God's  relation  to  man  and  man's  relation  to  God. 
The  habit  of  preaching  from  one  short  text  has 
been  overdone — take  your  Bible  in  bigger  doses, 
feel  the  swing  and  the  power  of  the  stories.  The 
real  reason  for  reading  the  Bible,  is  to  get  an  in- 
troduction, as  it  were,  to  God — then  you  must 
pursue  the  matter  and  grow  into  the  most  inti- 
mate possible  relation  to  him  by  talking  to  him,  by 
consulting  him  in  your  perplexities,  and  remember, 


14  The  One  Way 

that  If  you  go  to  consult  an  earthly  friend,  out  of 
mere  common  politeness  you  pause  to  give  him  a 
chance  to  answer  while  you  listen.  It  is  this  art 
of  listening  to  God  that  is  the  most  important 
lesson  for  the  world  today  and  it  must  be  done  in 
the  quiet  of  your  own  heart.  Our  Lord  said: 
*Enter  into  thy  closet  and  when  thou  hast  shut 
thy  door  pray  to  thy  Father  which  is  in  secret 
and  thy  Father  which  seeth  in  secret  shall  reward 
thee  openly.*  That  closet  is  the  silence  of  your 
own  heart.  Marcus  Aurelius  said:  'Man  know 
thyself,  it  is  the  sum  of  knowledge.'  You  must 
have  times  of  quiet,  of  retirement,  if  you  are  going 
to  learn  this  most  profound  side  of  prayer.  The 
old  conception  of  prayer  to  God,  man  asking  for 
things  he  wants  or  needs,  is  a  very  childish,  one 
sided  conception  of  prayer.  Prayer  should  be  in- 
tercourse with  God  and  if  you  do  all  the  speaking 
and  no  listening  I  think  it  Is  easily  seen  that  your 
knowledge  of,  and  friendship  for,  God  will  not 
grow  very  fast.  Great  public  meetings  for  silent 
prayer  are  of  immense  power  and  Importance. 
Get  a  thousand  or  two  or  three  thousand  persons 
together  and  let  them  join  In  silent  prayer  and 
you  will  find  great  power  from  God  Almighty 
descending  upon  you.  I  have  spoken  of  the  book 
called  the  'Seven  Purposes' ;  therein  Is  set  forth 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It    15 

with  great  truth  the  fact  that  the  crisis  of  the 
Great  War  is  but  a  small  incident  in  the  crisis  of 
the  whole  universe  that  is  upon  us.  If  you  don't 
help  us  and  let  us  help  you,  the  progress  of  the 
whole  human  race  will  be  delayed  (and  please  re- 
member that  the  human  race  is  not  merely  those 
who  live  on  your  tiny  star  but  that  we  here  also 
belong  to  the  human  race.)  Choose  whom  you 
will  serve,  God  or  Baal,  and  have  no  double-mind- 
edness  in  any  of  your  ways.  Men  pursue  wealth 
and  nothing  else,  and  they  become  rich  in  filthy 
lucre;  pursue  God  and  let  everything  else  go,  and 
don't  make  any  silly  mistake  and  say,  'that's  all 
very  well,  who  will  provide  for  my  wife  and  chil- 
dren?' You  fools  and  slow  of  heart  to  under- 
stand !  Keep  God  in  all  your  thoughts,  have  him 
for  the  end  and  centre  of  your  being  and  then  live 
your  common  daily  life  as  in  his  sight,  'not  with 
eye  service  as  men  pleasers  but  as  servants  of 
Christ  serving  the  Lord.'  Of  course  you  have  to 
attend  to  the  daily  earthly  life.  The  man  who  is 
mad  to  make  money  lives  his  daily  life  with  the 
basic  idea  of  becoming  a  millionaire,  or  still  bet- 
ter a  multimillionaire.  I  am  only  asking  you  to 
pursue  the  natural  daily  duties  of  your  earthly  life, 
with  the  basic  idea  of  serving  God  first  and  last 
and  all  the  time.     I  have  lived  on  earth  and  I 


i6  The  One  Way 

know  what  human  life  is,  and  now  I  am  in  a  more 
advanced  stage  and  I  know  what  I  am  talking 
about.  Perhaps  you  will  laugh  and  say,  'James 
used  to  think  he  knew  what  he  was  talking  about 
and  evidently  he  hasn't  changed  much.'  Men 
don't  change  much,  they  develop  and  evolve  here 
slowly  or  fast  according  to  their  abilities,  but 
chiefly  according  to  the  degree  of  spiritual  devel- 
opment that  they  had  obtained  before  they  came 
here.  I  tell  you  a  titanic  struggle  lies  ahead,  join 
forces  with  us,  choose  whom  ye  will  serve ;  if  God 
be  God  serve  him.  *Ye  cannot  serve  God  and 
Mammon.' 

"What  I  have  already  written  should  show  you 
a  little  of  that  knowledge  which  I  have  gained. 
It  is  nothing  and  yet  such  as  it  is — I  give  it  you. 
The  fear  of  the  Lord — that  should  be  translated 
the  awe  or  wondering  contemplation  of  the  Lord 
— is  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  He  is  omniscient, 
the  source  and  end  of  wisdom.  If  you  would 
only  learn  how  to  open  your  whole  natures  to 
him  and  let  him  into  you, — the  indwelling  God, — 
you  would  attain  to  wisdom,  not  through  the  pain- 
ful process  of  committing  to  memory  through  your 
brains  only.  Of  course  God  gave  you  your  minds 
and  of  course  they  are  to  be  used  and  cultivated 
and  I  would  be  an  utter  fool  to  say  stop  learning 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It    17 

and  studying,  but  I  do  say  you  must  cultivate  the 
whole  man,  and  the  Instincts  are  a  part  of  man  that 
has  almost  atrophied.  The  intellectuals  of  the 
world  do  not  know  the  debt  that  they  owe  to  the 
religious  teachers  and  thinkers  who  have  made 
their  religion  practical,  living  out  in  their  daily 
lives  those  things  which  they  believe,  for  they, 
and  they  alone,  have  kept  alive  the  instinctive 
powers  of  man  among  the  more  highly  cultured 
peoples — and  when  I  say  Instinctive,  don^t  think  I 
mean  emotional.  It  may  Include  emotion,  but  Is 
far  deeper  and  greater  than  mere  emotion. 

^'The  only  real  freedom  comes  from  following 
out  those  laws  which  govern  the  thing  with  which 
you  are  dealing.  Take  for  instance  the  force; 
of  electricity,  it  Is  a  very  dangerous,  death-dealing 
force;  work  within  the  laws  that  govern  It  and 
you  control  It.  You  are  free  from  its  dangers. 
A  parallel  law  works  with  spiritual  things.  You 
must  learn  the  spiritual  laws.  As  I  shall  try  to 
show  you,  in  the  chapter  In  which  I  shall  deal 
with  the  lives  of  the  saints,  you  have  already  all 
the  revelation  about  those  spiritual  laws  which 
are  necessary  to  your  human  life  on  earth.  There 
are  greater  degrees  of  spiritual  life  here  and  here- 
after, but  the  basic  principles — all  of  which  you 
stand  In  need — have  been  given  you  already,  there- 


i8  The  One  Way 

fore  go  back  to  straight  old  fashioned,  apostolic, 
Bible  Christianity,  leave  the  discussion  of  the- 
ology till  you  are  able  to  understand  what  you  are 
talking  about. 

"This  sums  up  my  present  position  about  the 
revelation  of  the  Bible.  I  have  tried  to  make  it 
clear,  but  it  is  not  easy,  because  we  no  longer  use 
human  language,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  be  sure  of 
getting  the  matter  through.  The  most  trouble- 
some thing  we  have  to  deal  with  is  the  doubt  of 
our  amanuenses.  That  is  not  a  wholly  bad  thing, 
because  a  person  undertaking  this  work  carelessly 
or  out  of  idle  curiosity,  is  in  danger  of  becoming 
an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  unscrupulous  or  de- 
terrent spirits,  and  it  needs  the  greatest  vigilance 
on  the  part  of  the  person  receiving  the  message  not 
to  be  interfered  with.^     Yet,  in  order  to  write. 


^I  have  not  Interrupted  the  book  to  tell  of  the  many  inter- 
ferences which  have  occurred.  At  one  time,  during  the  summer, 
I  could  do  no  work  for  several  days,  because  as  soon  as  the 
words  "William  James  Control"  were  written,  the  pencil  would 
either  run  around  and  be  silly,  or  a  woman,  whose  handwriting 
never  varied,  and  whose  manner  of  writing  was  utterly  different 
from  that  of  any  other  person,  would  persist  in  trying  to  tell  me 
a  story  of  her  little  children.  She  said  they  were  in  great  need 
and  begged  me  to  go  to  them  and  help  them.    At  her  direction 

I   wrote   to   a   W B ,   lo   Speedway,   Providence,   R.    I. 

That  letter  was  returned  to  me  by  the  post  office  authorities. 
There  was  a  lot  to  it.  She  knew  exactly  how  to  appeal  to  my 
sympathies,  first  for  her  husband — whom  she  afterward  claimed 


To  Prove  Christianity;  Live  It    19 

they  must  sink  their  own  personality  to  the  disap- 
pearing point,  chain  their  imagination,  and  at  the 
same  time,  be  keenly  on  the  alert,  reading  and 
following  what  Is  written.  Hence,  you  ought  to 
be  able  to  see  that  shades  of  meaning  can  easily 
be  blurred — therefore  read  with  an  open  mind, 
ready  to  receive  the  truth  and  to  prove  It  by  prac- 
tical daily  living,  not  in  a  harshly  critical  or  analy- 
tical mood.  If  it  is  not  absolutely  correct,  re- 
member I  too  am  human,  though  you  are  not  in  the 
habit  of  applying  that  word  to  those  of  us  who 
have  passed  through  the  change  of  death.  I  too 
am  fallible,  and  whereas  I  once  thought  I  knew  a 
lot,  I  now  know  that  I  am  but  the  humblest  of 
learners — although  teaching  Is  still  my  work  and 
my  purpose  is  progress." 


had  committed  suicide — then  for  the  children.  I  felt  she  was 
evil  so  I  did  not  want  to  put  it  in  the  book.  At  the  end  of  that 
period  my  husband  wrote  of  having  had  a  great  fight,  and  Dr. 
James  wrote :  "Now  are  you  satisfied  that  that  woman  is  deter- 
rent?   You  let  her  in." 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Value  of  Certain  Philosophies;  Both 
OF  THE  East  and  of  the  West 

*'^T^HAT  the  Western  and  the  Eastern  philoso- 
phies have  very  widely  diverging  points  of 
view,  Is  the  current  opinion  I  know,  but  in  truth, 
there  is  much  greater  fundamental  agreement  than 
you  know.  What  few  thinkers  have  as  yet  real- 
ized, is  that  the  whole  human  race  is  one.  In  our 
Western  minds  is  deeply  ingrained  the  idea  of  the 
Jews  as  Chosen  people  of  God.  When  they  failed 
to  fulfill  their  destiny  and  recognize  their  Messiah 
when  he  came,  we  feel  that  we  Christians  in- 
herited as  it  were,  their  place  and  became  the  best 
beloved  of  God.  In  a  sense,  there  is  just  enough 
of  vital  truth  in  that  idea  to  have  helped  us  to  go 
off  at  half  cock  and  accept  it  as  the  whole  truth. 
Now  the  fact  is,  the  whole  human  race  is  God's 
creation  one  and  in  a  sense  indivisible.  Backward 
races  hold  back  the  whole  progress.  The  so-called 
heathen  nations  hold  back  the  progress  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  self-satisfied  attitude  of  the  mass 

20 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies   21 

of  the  Christian  world  has  prevented  them  from 
recognizing,  that  at  the  heart  of  the  so-called 
heathen  religions  lies  an  aspect  of  truth  whereby 
God  was  preparing  those  people  to  be  ready  for 
the  teaching  of  Christianity,  which  should  have 
been  brought  to  them  centuries  ago.  It  is  hardly 
possible  to  speak  too  strongly  of  the  importance  of 
missionary  work  among  the  so-called  heathen 
nations.  The  luke-warmness  of  many  Christians 
on  that  subject,  not  to  speak  of  the  actual  antagon- 
ism, is  a  fearful  blot  and  disgrace  on  the  church 
and  should  be  ruthlessly  cut  out  by  individuals  and 
masses  of  men,  like  any  other  cancerous  evil 
growth.  The  family  dies  If  no  children  are  born, 
the  church  must  atrophy  and  decay,  unless  it  is 
spreading  and  increasing — not  only  at  home  but 
abroad.  You  have  seen  how  the  world  has  been 
rocked  almost  to  its  foundation  by  one  nation  de- 
termined on  destruction.  Germany's  population 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war  was  only  one  seven- 
teenth part  of  the  population  of  the  world.  What 
do  you  think  will  happen  to  business  and  art  and 
science  if  you  let  things  go  on  as  at  present? 
China,  Japan,  Africa,  with  their  teeming  millions 
of  non-Christians  getting  education  and  external 
civilization  and  no  real  Christianity?  Then  add 
to  that,  the  vast  numbers  of  heathen  in  our  own 


22  The  One  Way 

so-called  Christian  lands — and  right  here,  let  me 
tell  you  that  Christianity  pure  and  as  it  was  given 
to  the  world  nineteen  centuries  ago,  is  the  final 
religion;  put  that  on  your  housetops  and  let  it  be 
engraven  on  your  hearts.  'Jesus  Christ  is  the 
Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life.'  There  is  no  other 
way.  Live  it  out  in  your  daily  lives.  Neverthe- 
less, the  full  revelation  of  the  gospel  of  Christ 
will  never  come  until  Orientals  and  all  races  of 
men  are  drawn  in — adding  their  interpretation  of 
the  Christ  to  yours. 

God  is  not  a  man  to  be  suited  to  one  race  or 
nation  alone.  He  is  the  creator  of  the  universe, 
and  he  can  and  does  fill  all  men  and  all  things. 
Many  have  become  disgusted  with  Christianity, 
because  there  are  so  many  professing  Christians 
who  belie  the  truth  of  what  they  say  they  be- 
lieve. Most  of  the  followers  of  the  Eastern 
philosophies,  or  religions,  if  you  prefer  so  to 
call  them,  have  done  the  same  thing  only  a 
thousand  fold  more  so.  The  practices  of  Bud- 
dhism for  instance,  are  very  far  removed  from  the 
original  ideas  of  Buddha — Buddhism  should  have 
been  but  a  preparatory  revelation,  leading  on  to 
and  preparing  for,  a  fuller  revelation  of  God's 
eternal  truth.  It  has,  in  point  of  fact,  become  so 
debauched  that,  as  generally  practised  and  lived 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies   23 

today,  It  has  little  or  no  relation  to  the  original 
high  Ideals  such  as  you  find  In  their  sacred  books. 
It  Is  as  true  for  them  as  for  you  that  It  Is  not 
what  Is  written  In  their  religious  books  that  counts, 
but  what  the  actual  lives  of  the  men  and  women 
are.  So  far  as  I  know,  every  one  of  the  great 
philosophers  of  the  world  have  perceived  or  real- 
ized a  small  vital  grain  or  aspect  of  truth,  and  on 
that  they  have  built  up  a  whole  fabric — trying  to 
stretch  that  bit  of  the  truth  to  cover  a  far  greater 
field  than  It  could  cover.  The  mind  of  man  Is  so 
small  that  It  is  absolutely  Impossible  for  him  to 
take  in  more  than  the  merest  suggestion  of 
Eternal  Truth.  But  when  a  man  runs  across — 
discovers  or  learns  about — one  small  aspect  of 
truth  he  Is  so  overwhelmingly  Impressed  by  the 
inherent  power  that  is  latent  In  all  truth,  that  he 
with  his  finite  mind  feels  that  he  has  discovered 
all  truth.  You  can  hold  your  hand  before  your 
eyes  and  blot  out  the  widest  landscape.  You  only 
blot  It  out  from  yourself,  the  landscape  is  still 
there.  Your  Ignorance  or  disbelief  in  the  Eternal 
Verities  of  God  doesn't  hurt  those  Eternal  Veri- 
ties, but  it  does  handicap  you.  One  reason  why 
scientists  have  found  it  so  hard  to  accept  purely 
religious  truths  Is,  that  the  aspect  of  truth  to  which 
they  have  been  devoting  their  study  has  blinded 


24  The  One  Way 

them.     It  Is  this  limitation  of  your  whole  mental 
attitude  that  you  must  clear  away.    Life  Is  not  in 
little  sections;  the  life  of  God's  whole  universe 
Is  a  unit,  a  whole,  hanging  together — let  one  part 
be  damaged,  all  is  damaged,  its  perfection  marred. 
*'If  I  can  persuade  you  to  open  your  eyes  to  the 
new  aspect  of  old  truths,  I  think  I  can  show  you 
that  there  is  value  in  most  of  the  philosophies 
both  of  the  East  and  West,  but  a  partial  value,  a 
small  contribution  that  each  had  to  make  to  the 
whole.    Take  for  instance,  Berkeley's  philosophy. 
He  obtained  a  great  following,  his  writings  are 
still  studied,  but  I  think  that  If  you  have  a  slight 
restating  of  this  man's  theories  you  will  find  a 
great  illumination  of  all  his  writing.     You  will 
see  the  value  of  what  he  taught,  and  yet  lose  the 
limitation  of  his  point  of  view.    He  states  that  we 
have  no  proof  of  the  existence  of  matter.     How 
does  that  strike  the  average  man  of  today,  with 
the  materialistic  point  of  view  that  that  only  is 
real  which  I  can  touch,  handle  or  prove  indisput- 
ably?   In  this  connection,  consider  for  a  moment 
all  the  class  of  thinkers  who  say  pain  and  suffer- 
ing are  not  real.     You  must  acknowledge  that  if 
one  man  can  break  his  leg  and  feel  no  pain,  he 
has  something  over  the  next  man  who  breaks  his 
leg  and  suffers  torture.    Of  course,  at  once  I  hear 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies    25 

a  clamor  of  voices  asserting,  'the  first  man  is  just 
a  liar;  he  has  the  pain  but  he  won't  admit  It.'  No 
friends,  there  you  are  wrong;  that  man  has  got 
hold  of  a  secret — in  reality  it  Is  an  aspect  of  truth 
that  should  be  free  to  all.  It  is  this,  that  though 
a  broken  bone  usually  carries  with  It  much  pain, 
in  the  present  state  of  the  development  of  the 
human  race,  there  Is  a  higher  law.  To  the  man 
who  lives  steadfastly  facing  God,  matter  and  Its 
laws  can  practically  cease  to  exist  because  the 
higher  can  wholly  dominate  and  swallow  up  the 
low^er.  God,  the  indwelling  Father,  can,  if  his 
child  chooses  that  he  shall — Interpenetrate  every 
atom  of  a  man's  body,  and  to  the  man  who  has 
learned  this  as  a  practical  working  principle  of 
daily  life,  the  coming  of  the  broken  bone  need  not 
necessarily  bring  pain,  because  he  can  so  open  his 
whole  self  to  God  that  God  can  come  In  and  show 
forth  his  power,  just  at  that  point  where  It  is  most 
needed.  There  are  on  the  earth  today,  many 
men  who  are  practising  the  presence  of  God  In 
their  bodies,  to  such  an  extent  that  they  are  freed 
from  physical  pain.  Please  let  me  remind  you, 
that  God  will  never  force  himself  into  either  your 
soul  or  your  body,  unless  you  choose  to  have  him 
— he  will  never  Interfere  with  your  royal  preroga- 
tive of  free  will — therefore,  you  must  learn  by  a 


26  The  One  Way 

steady  practice  of  the  Presence  of  God  to  call  his 
indwelling  power  into  your  body  and  your  soul. 
It  is  rare  that  a  man  can  open  himself  to  God's 
indwelling  power  in  his  body  in  an  emergency, 
unless  he  has  been  at  least  a  little  in  the  habit  of 
practising  the  Presence  of  God  in  his  daily  life.  I 
say,  in  his  body,  advisedly,  because  many  a  man 
subconsciously  in  his  soul  practises  the  Presence  of 
God  and  acknowledges  his  sovereignty  in  his  soul, 
even  when  his  intellect  does  not  assent,  but  your 
intellect  must  assent  before  you  can  be  very  suc- 
cessful in  opening  your  body  to  God's  indwelling 
power.  Remember  always  that  your  ignorance  of 
a  law  does  not  make  it  untrue.  There  are  many 
men  and  women  among  you  today  who  are  living 
this  truth  in  their  daily  life.  It  is  for  you  too, 
if  you  choose  to  get  up  and  work  for  it. 

("Mrs.  B do  not  doubt,  because  so  much 

of  this  that  I  am  writing  is  familiar  to  you.  It  is 
just  because  you  are  advanced  in  many  lines  of 
spiritual  thought  that  you  have  been  appointed  to 
receive  and  transmit  this  message.  I  know  it  is 
hard  for  you  to  believe  that  I  am  really  in  control, 
because  you  often  hear  my  thought,  at  least  in 
part,  before  the  pencil  writes  it  down,  but  it  need 
be  no  matter  of  quarrel  between  us  who  writes 
this  book  if  it  contains  a  message  of  vital,  living 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies    27 

truth  to  needy  men  and  women;  It  Is  no  matter 
if  I  borrow  some  of  your  thoughts  and  write  them 
down.  Not  one  word  has  been  written  that  I 
don't  fully  assent  to.) 

"Don't  let  anyone  think  that  they  can  attain 
unto  It  without  hard  work.     It  requires  a  constant 
renewing  of  your  determination  to  live  according 
to  God's  will,  not  according  to  your  own  fancy 
and  desire.     Suppose  that  we  state  It  something 
like  this.     That  alone  is  real  which  has  eternal 
or  enduring  existence.    Then  matter — your  chairs 
and  tables,  your  houses  and  lands  are  not  real  for 
you  all  know  that  given  enough  time  they  will  fade 
aw^ay  and  be  gone.     The  pain  of  the  broken  limb 
of  the   man  who   is   Ignorant   of  the   indwelling 
power  of  God  will  not  endure  eternally,  yet  it  is 
very  real  to  him  while  it  lasts.    It  is  actual  and  for 
him  very  terrible  and  it  is  simply  silly  to  say  he 
has  no  pain — of  course  he  has  the  pain — he  is 
suffering  horribly.     It  is  true  that  he  has  pain, 
nevertheless  It  is  more  true  that  It  is  possible  for 
a  man  to  break  his  leg  and  if  he  be  sufficiently 
versed  In  the  art  of  opening  himself  to  the  Indwell- 
ing power  of  God  both  in  his  body  and  his  soul 
he  can  have  the  broken  leg  without  pain.     This  is 
a  fact.     Now,  since  It  is  a  fact,  hadn't  you  better 
learn  how  to  open  yourself  body  and  soul  to  the 


28  The  One  Way 

indwelling  power  of  your  heavenly  Father  and 
gradually  let  pain  and  sickness  be  done  away  for 
the  race?  Your  soul  is  real,  for  it  will  endure 
forever.  Berkeley  contended  that  the  only  thing 
that  a  man  really  knew  existed  was  his  own  self 
or  soul.  Take  your  Berkeley  and  reread  it  from 
this  point  of  view.  Take  your  modern  books  that 
deal  with  these  points  and  reread  them  In  the  light 
of  what  I  have  told  you — suck  the  drop  of  vital, 
eternal,  enduring  truth  out  of  each  one  and  in- 
corporate it  into  your  daily  life.  God  Is  not  only 
an  Indwelling  God  but  He  Is  omniscient,  the  end 
and  source  of  ill  wisdom,  and  the  man  who 
chooses  to  have  God  for  his  all,  has  open  to  him 
the  source  of  all  wisdom.  If  you  truly  rely  upon 
God,  he  will  guide  you  Into  all  wisdom.  Don't 
let  anyone  think  I  am  preaching  a  doctrine  of  ease, 
of  lying  down  upon  God  and  doing  no  work  them- 
selves. No  other  form  of  life  demands  an  equal 
degree  of  moral  fibre,  or  an  equal  degree  of  effort 
on  your  part.  That  old  free  will  of  yours  will  be 
cropping  up  to  the  last  day  of  your  earthly  life, 
and  as  often  as  It  reappears  you  must  take  It  and 
lay  It  at  God's  feet  determinedly.  You  will  never 
win  to  Heaven — that  place  or  state  where  God 
dwells — on  flowery  beds  of  ease,  and  yet  it  is  true 
you   can  only  attain  to   Heaven  through  God's 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies   29 

power  alone.  By  yourselves  you  could  never 
reach  there.  The  real  art  of  living  Is  to  open 
yourself  so  that  he  can  come  In  and  dwell  in  you. 
*In  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.' 
At  first,  it  may  seem  a  paradox  to  say,  you  cannot 
attain  by  any  striving  of  your  own,  God  has  to  do 
it  all,  and  then  to  say  you  must  work  every  second 
to  accomplish  the  end.  The  hardest  thing  a  man 
can  do  Is  to  lay  down  that  Godlike  quality  of  free 
will — that  quality  which  above  all  others  shows 
him  to  be  made  in  the  image  of  God — but  if  you 
wish  to  attain,  you  must  lay  down  the  Image  or 
likeness  to  God  in  order  that  He  may  enter  into 
you  and  dwell  In  you  so  that  you  will  become  one 
with  Him.  It  is  obviously  greater  to  become  one 
with  God  than  to  be  made  in  His  image. 

^'Search  out  in  your  Bible  and  find  how  many 
centuries  before  Christ  it  was  stated,  'The  temples 
of  the  Lord  are  ye.'  Men  and  women,  that  Is 
what  you  were  created  for,  to  be  the  Temples  of 
the  Lord.  Are  you  fulfilling  your  destiny?  I  ask 
all  who  hear  this  message  to  clear  out  their 
temples  and  let  God  alone  dwell  In  them,  and  to 
help  all  other  men  to  clear  out  their  temples 
and  let  God  come  into  His  own.  Be  assured 
of  this;  Christ  meant  exactly  what  he  said 
when  he  said  "If  a  man  love  me  he  will  keep  my 


50  The  One  Way 

commandments  and  my  Father  and  I  will  come 
unto  him  and  make  our  abode  with  him.'  " 

July  15th.  "Take  for  another  example  the 
teachings  of  Socrates,  with  their  great  beauty  of 
Ideals.  They  again  were  meant  to  be  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  fuller  revelation  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.  That  man  should  seek  happiness  as  the 
goal  of  his  desire  Is  entirely  proper,  but  do  you 
want  permanent  or  transitory  happiness?  Do  you 
want  the  pleasure  of  the  flesh  which  will  pass  with 
the  flesh  or  do  you  want  the  pleasure  of  the  Intel- 
lect and  the  soul?  Most  men  are  so  short  sighted 
that  it  Is  hard  for  them  to  look  ahead  of  their 
earthly  life  and  realize  that  to  us  here,  even  those 
of  us  who  lived  a  long  time  on  earth  and  have  been 
here  but  a  short  time,  the  life  of  earth  Is  but  a 
moment.  It  Is  a  fact  that  the  sins  of  the  flesh 
destroy  the  flesh.  You  may  think  that  Is  of  no 
consequence  since  your  flesh  is  left  upon  earth. 
Here,  we  have  not  fleshly  bodies  yet  we  feel  all 
our  members,  just  as  completely, — no,  far  more 
completely  than  you  feel  yours,  and  just  as  you 
would  feel  with  a  fleshly  body  minus  your  limbs 
or  some  of  your  vital  organs,  so  Is  a  man  here 
who  having  Indulged  In  the  sins  of  the  flesh  has 
destroyed  some  vital  part  of  his  spiritual  body. 
You  make  your  spiritual  bodies  by  the  life  you  live 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies    31 

upon  earth — therefore  If  you  want  happiness  it 
behooves  you  to  seek  It  even  with  tears.  Remem- 
ber this  the  next  time  you  read  Socrates. 

"What  I  am  trying  to  tell  you  should,  If  I  make 
my  meaning  clear,  enhance  the  value  of  the  beauty 
you  find  In  your  Socrates  and  give  a  wholly  new 
value  to  It.  The  same  Is  true  of  Plato.  He 
wrote,  as  most  men  do,  for  his  day,  revealing  as 
much  as  the  men  of  his  day  were  capable  of  re- 
ceiving. Take  back  to  your  classical  reading  the 
Idea  that  they  were  playing  their  part  In  a  great 
world  plan  known  from  the  beginning  to  the  Al- 
mighty Father. 

"Right  here,  comes  in  again  the  old  age-long 
question,  If  man  has  free  will  how  can  God  know 
beforehand  what  man  will  do?  How  could  God 
have  a  plan  which  man  will  fulfill?  Simply  be- 
cause man,  having  been  made  in  the  image  of 
God,  must  in  the  end  fulfill  his  own  destiny  and 
become  truly  Godlike.  Now,  when  man  chooses 
to  go  off  on  his  own  wilful  way  and  do  that  which 
is  contrary  to  his  own  inherent  God  likeness,  he 
delays  the  whole  plan,  and  sometimes  a  few  men 
have  succeeded  In  putting  back  the  progress  of  the 
w^orld,  for  centuries,  prolonging  the  agony.  This 
would  have  happened  If  Germany  had  been  suc- 
cessful and  won  the  war. 


32  The  One  Way 

"Nearly  all  thinkers  recognize  that  you  have 
come  to  the  end  of  one  era  in  the  history  of  the 
earth  and  the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  What  you 
do  not  realize  is,  that  it  is  also  an  eternal  crisis 
and  unless  the  forces  that  are  for  progress — and 
when  I  speak  of  the  forces  for  progress  I  mean 
all  men  everywhere  who  are  working  construct- 
ively for  God,  whether  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously— unless  these  forces  unite  and  put  their 
whole  power  into  the  fight,  the  deterrent  forces 
who  are  united  may  win  the  battle  for  the  time 
being,  and  the  development  of  all  men  be  held 
back  for  centuries.  We  are  permitted  to  tell  you 
that  the  world  war  is  as  nothing  compared  to  the 
titanic  struggle  that  lies  before  the  human  race, 
and  don't  forget,  that  that  includes  us  here.  A 
very  large  part  of  the  world  today  thinks,  that 
when  death  comes  to  a  man  his  account  is  settled 
and  he  goes  to  his  place  and  his  chance  is  over. 
That  idea  has  gained  such  ascendancy  over  the 
human  race  because  it  has  in  it  such  a  great  amount 
of  truth.  Your  earthly  life  is  given  you  to  make 
all  your  most  important  growth  in,  that  is,  the 
starting  of  your  growth,  the  potential  growth  if  I 
may  so  express  it.  In  what  I  am  now  saying,  I 
speak  of  the  ordinary  average  human  being,  not 
of   maimed   individuals  whose   imperfections    of 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies    33 

mind  and  body  put  them  Into  a  separate  class. 
Of  them  I  will  speak  later.  The  essential  growth 
you  have  to  make  is  your  choice  between  good 
and  evil :  on  that  hangs  all  the  rest.  All  intellect- 
ual development  is  only  relatively  important. 
Every  man  has  thousands  of  chances  to  renew  or 
even  change  his  choice,  but  your  whole  future  does 
depend  on  the  choice  you  make  in  your  earthly  life, 
A  man  who  has  sinned  on  earth,  consistently  and 
deliberately,  can  return  to  God  and  to  goodness, 
but  through  a  course  of  training  and  discipline  that 
is  more  terrible  than  any  hell  fire  you  have  ever 
conceived  of.  The  burning  of  flames  is  a  purely 
material  interpretation,  suited  to  the  development 
of  man  at  the  time  that  the  teaching  was  put  into 
words :  the  burning  of  remorse  is  to  a  spirit  unut- 
terably greater  and  more  terrible  than  any  suffer- 
ing of  your  body  such  as  being  burned.  During 
your  earthly  life  you  are  given  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  chances  to  make  your  choice.  If  you  re- 
fuse to  make  your  choice  there,  when  you  come 
here  you  will  have  to  take  the  consequences. 
There  Is  no  organized  punishment  here;  there  are 
the  consequences.  Sinners,  as  you  popularly  use 
that  term,  who  come  here,  are  met  with  love  and 
given  a  chance  to  make  their  choice  here.  If  they 
will  not  take  it  they  must  take  the  consequences  and 


34  The  One  Way 

the  consequences  are  more  awful  than  any  words 
can  describe.  Yet,  the  Salvation  of  Christ  will  not 
be  complete  until  all  men  have  come  in  and  re- 
turned to  God,  though  it  be  from  the  lowest  hell 
— through  agony  unutterable — every  single  soul  is 
necessary  to  God. 

^*The  reason  why  Germany  was  able  to  with- 
stand the  whole  world  for  such  a  long  time  was 
that  Germany,  the  central  empire,  was  completely 
united  under  a  despotic  government  that  held  it 
into  a  unit  all  acting  together.  The  Allies  might 
have  been  victorious  much  earlier  had  they  earlier 
been  united  as  they  later  became.  The  deterrent, 
or  what  you  would  call  evil,  forces  are  uniting  now 
for  a  titanic  struggle.  God  is  permitting  us  a 
chance  to  talk  to  you  and  to  help  you  to  unite 
before  it  is  too  late.  Put  aside  your  differences 
of  all  kinds,  religious,  political,  civic,  economic, 
and  unite.  Unite  with  each  other  and  unite  with 
us. 

"People  who  are  successful  in  doing  automatic 
writing  for  the  forces  of  progress  learn  very 
quickly  to  recognize  when  a  deterrent  spirit 
touches  the  pencil,  and  you  must  learn  to  recog- 
nize when  a  deterrent  spirit  whispers  a  thought 
or  suggestion  to  your  mind  or  spirit,  to  recognize 
them  and  instantly  send  them  to  their  own  place. 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies    35 

You  can  protect  yourself  by  a  clear  determined 
order.  'Get  thee  behind  me.'  Say,  'I  absolutely 
refuse  to  be  Interfered  with  by  mischievous  or  de- 
terrent spirits  whether  In  the  body  or  out  of  It.' 
But  remember  your  whole  will  must  be  behind  the 
above  statement.  If  you  have  not  attained  suf- 
ficient force  of  will,  pray.  Prayer  Is  one  of  the 
levers  that  can  lift  the  universe,  because  by  true 
prayer  you  unite  yourself  to  the  Almighty  Creator 
of  the  universe.  Remember  true  prayer  is  union 
with  God,  not  petitions  asking  for  benefits.  Prayer 
in  Christ's  name  Is  prayer  which  Is  in  unison  with 
the  Spirit  of  God. 

"I  have  said  that  this  chapter  was  to  deal  with 
the  different  philosophies  both  western  and 
eastern.  I  do  not  propose  to  take  them  up  one 
by  one  and  discuss  them.  I  only  mean  to  give  you 
suggestions;  pointing  the  way — so  that  you  can 
compare  them  to  the  fuller  revelation,  and  for 
yourselves  put  them  w^here  they  belong.  Your 
earthly  life  Is  your  best  time  for  growth  and  we 
slfeould  weaken  your  fibre  If  we  who  know  a  little 
mpre  than  you  do  should  direct  you  what  to  do  or 
what  to  think.  You  must  make  your  own  decisions 
and  experiments.  It  Is  a  fresh  outpouring  of  the 
infinite  love  of  the  Almighty  Father  that  at  this 
time  there  is  permitted  a  lifting  of  the  veil  be- 


36  The  One  Way 

tween  our  worlds.  It  is  not  nearly  so  great  a 
change  as  you  believe  it  to  be.  In  days  gone  by, 
prophets  and  great  men  have  received  inspiration, 
some  of  them  direct  from  God  or  from  some  of 
his  servants  whom  he  has  appointed  for  that  pur- 
pose, into  their  minds  or  in  the  case  of  authors 
through  the  pen  or  pencil.  If  you  will  look  this 
matter  up  you  will  find  now  and  again  records  of 
authors,  who  wrote  their  books  with  a  rapidity 
that  was  absolutely  incredible.  Without  the  least 
doubt  that  was  pure  automatic  writing. 

"Now  to  merely  mention  such  men  as  Ran." 

(Here  follow  a  series  of  attempts  to  take  a 
name.) 

{Wait  a  minute^  let  us  pray  for  God^s  power. 
Are  you  tired f) 

"No  because  we  don't  get  tired  in  that  sense  as 
long  as  there  is  work  to  be  done  and  the  proper 
opportunity  to  do  it;  God  supplies  us  with  his 
strength,  just  as  the  water  main  supplies  the  water 
in  your  pipes  as  long  as  you  make  the  demand  for 
It  by  keeping  your  faucet  open.  The  same  supply 
Is  for  you,  only  you  have  not  yet  learned  to  use 
It  when  your  minds  and  bodies  grow  what  you  call 
weary." 

( Then  it  is  I  who  am — what  I  call  tired?) 

"Yes." 


The  Values  of  Certain  Philosophies   37 

(Nothing  is  more  convincing  to  nic  than  the 
way  the  pencil  stops  when  Mr.  James  or  my  hus- 
band are  done.) 

(After  nearly  an  hour's  rest.) 

"You  know  those  two  names  now  but  didn't  I 
have  a  time  with  you?  Take  such  men  as  Renan 
and  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau — they  allowed  doubts 
to  come  in  so  that  to  many  people  they  were  really 
deterrent  spirits,  yet  mixed  in  was  honest  seeking 
after  truth.  It  is  not  my  place  to  tell  you  which 
were  and  which  were  not  deterrent  spirits,  but  to 
remind  you  that  you  have  a  standard  to  measure 
by.  'The  fulness  of  the  measure  of  the  stature 
of  Christ.'  Some  men  there  are — Nietzsche  and 
Zwindei — Zwinderk — Zwindecky,  my  goodness 
let  me  write  with  the  pencil,  what  is  the  matter 
with  you,  Zwindecku  the  Russian — who  were 
wholly  deterrent  and  yet  who  incorporated  just 
enough  truth  into  their  work  to  accomplish  the 
most  enormous  amount  of  harm. 

"I  know  that  to  many  people  this  chapter  will 
seem  utterly  unsatisfactory,  because  they  would 
like  me  to  do  their  deciding  and  thinking  for  them. 
I  am  not  permitted  to  do  that.  Of  course  I  could 
tell  you  all  that  I  now  know  but  doing  so  would 
be  a  deterrent  act,  and  I  hope  you  know  I  am  not 
on  that  side." 


38  The  One  Way 

{Did  I  get  that  Russian  name  rig^htf) 

''Zwitnbouchu,  Znwimbouchu,  Tznwimbouchu 
—    You  were  awful." 

{Was  it  because  I  was  tired  or  was  it  some 
stupidity  on  my  part?) 

"No,  names  especially  unknown  and  foreign 
ones,  are  always  hard  to  get  through. 

"Now  go  on.  Someone  tried  to  interfere.  I 
don't  believe  I  will  go  into  any  of  the  Oriental 
philosophies  or  even  touch  on  them.  This  chapter 
is  only  to  offer  a  pointer.  The  rest  must  be 
worked  out  by  you  who  read  this. 


I  have  never  read  any  philosophy,  with  the  exception  of  one 
college  textbook  of  Berkeley's.  This  I  remembered  so  inaccu- 
rately, connecting  it  with  the  name  of  Lord  Bacon,  that  when  in 
the  course  of  the  automatic  writing  it  came  through  Berkeley 
(see  page  39),  I  said  to  myself:  "Why,  that  is  the  Baconian 
theory.  I  must  have  made  a  mistake  and  written  that  wrongly." 
It  was  with  fear  and  trembling  that  I  first  gave  my  manuscript 
to  a  friend  to  read,  dreading  his  immediately  saying  with  scorn: 
"The  list  of  men  that  you  give  as  philosophers  is  enough  to 
wholly  condemn  your  book  as  an  automatic  script  Dr.  James 
could  never  have  mentioned  such  men  in  such  a  connection." 
I  did  not  know  whether  Plato,  Socrates,  Renan,  Rousseau,  and 
Nietzsche  were  philosophers. 


CHAPTER  III 

Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints — and  Singleness 

OF  Heart 

''T^ON'T  think  that  I  have  forgotten  your 
^-^  point  of  view.  You  want  accurate  scientific 
information  given  you.  What  you  know  as  the 
scientific  attitude  is  too  small,  too  sectional.  It 
is  perfect  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  astronomers  don't 
use  the  laws  of  electricity  to  measure  by.  So, 
don't  you  think  that  because  your  scientific  way  is 
so  good  for  certain  things,  that  everything  comes 
under  that  one  method  of  proof.  It  does  not.  It 
is  one  of  the  important  ways  of  working  out  your 
side  of  the  problem.  The  place  where  you  err, 
is  that  you  feel  as  if  all  things  must  be  proved  by 
scientific  rules.  That  is  simply  your  limitation  and 
ignorance.  Science  is  one  department.  It  is  not 
the  whole  thing.  At  present  you  cannot  subject 
spiritual  laws  to  accurate  scientific  tests.  Even 
medicine  has  never  been  an  absolutely  accurate 
science,   because   the   recuperative  power   of   the 

39 


40  The  One  Way 

human  body  Is  a  spiritual  quality  and  you  can't 
estimate  it  except  on  spiritual  lines  and  by  spiritual 
laws." 

July  17th.  "I  do  not  feel  very  well  satisfied 
with  that  last  chapter.  You  better  let  us  read  that 
last  chapter  over  together." 

{How  can  yoii  read  it?) 

"By  your  reading  It  I  can  perceive  the  Ideas  in 
your  mind.  I  do  not  think  I  have  given  a  good 
title  to  Chapter  II.  You  change  it.  Call  it  'The 
Value  of  Certain  Philosophies,  Both  of  the  East 
and  West.'     Now  continue  Chapter  III. 

"The  way  that  you  can  prove  spiritual  laws  is 
by  living  them  and  that  Is  the  only  way.  You 
must  have  the  courage  to  experiment.  Think  of 
the  pioneers  of  science,  the  men  who  have  given 
their  lives  for  electricity,  steam,  aviation  and  ten 
thousand  other  developments.  You  need  not  give 
up  the  life  of  your  body  in  the  sense  of  dying, 
but  you  must  devote  yourselves,  body,  soul  and 
mind,  to  the  experiment  of  proving  spiritual  laws. 
Fortunately  for  you  there  has  gone  before  a  vast 
amount  of  work  Into  this  experiment.  If  I  were 
to  give  a  list  of  experimenters — the  saints  of  the 
earth — It  alone  would  fill  a  book.  Some  of  the 
best  for  you  to  study  are  found  In  the  Bible.  To 
many,   a  half  familiarity  with  the  Bible  stories 


Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints       41 

has  dulled  their  understanding  and  appreciation. 
Conquer  that;  It  is  stupid. 

"Take  Marcus  Aurelius.  You  won't  like  all  he 
says.  Find  out  parts  of  his  writing  that  appeal 
to  you,  and  live  those.  It  is  easier  to  do  that  with 
books  than  with  living  saints,  the  set  of  whose 
bonnet  or  the  tones  of  whose  voices  annoy  and 
rasp  you.  Yet  the  same  thing  that  I  counsel  your 
doing  with  the  writings  of  saints  I  counsel,  I  had 
almost  said  I  command — not  that  I  have  any  right 
to  command,  and  It  would  become  useless  if  I 
commanded  and  you  obeyed,  for  you  must  choose 
the  right  for  yourself — therefore  I  counsel  that 
you  look  at  the  living  men  or  women  w^ho  are 
fitting  to  be  leaders,  saints,  holy  men,  and  find 
their  essential  goodness  and  unite  with  them.  Let 
the  annoying  things  In  them  slide  off  you  like  water 
off  a  duck's  back.  Cut  out  from  your  mind  the 
attitude,  'Yes,  no  doubt  he  or  she  is  a  fine  force, 
a  strong  character,  but  I  can't  stand  this  or  that 
small  thing  In  them.'  Unite  with  their  fine  pur- 
poses and  let  us  get  to  work  to  beat  the  forces 
of  evil,  we  call  them  deterrent  forces  here.  The 
idea  that  evil  has  power  is  wrong.  God  alone 
has  real  power.  Individuals  who  choose  to  follow 
their  own  v»'Ills,  thus  denying  God,  are  deterrent 
and  produce  evil  results.     You  can  protect  your- 


42  The  One  Way 

self  from  them  by  allying  yourselves  firmly  to 
God.  You  should  understand  by  this  time,  that 
the  language  we  use  here  is  the  thought  language, 
consequently  a  Russian  and  an  Englishman,  or 
any  combination,  can  speak  freely  together  pro- 
vided only  that  their  level  of  development  be  the 
same — which  means  not  only  their  intellectual  edu- 
cation but  their  spiritual  knowledge.  There  are 
many  instances  of  thought  transference  known 
among  you,  and  they  are  simply  examples  of  our 
common  manner  of  communicating  here.  Now 
you  can  learn  much  of  that  language.  You  al- 
ready know  much  more  of  it  than  you  realize. 
You  hear  many  thoughts,  both  elevating  and  de- 
basing, and  you  must  choose  which  kind  of 
thoughts  you  will  entertain.  You  can  protect 
yourself  by  a  determined  choice.  Say  in  words, 
*I  refuse  to  be  interfered  with,'  and  mean  it  when 
you  say  it. 

''The  lives  of  the  saints  are  very  little  studied 
in  these  days,  but  certain  of  them  should  be  con- 
stantly in  use  among  you.  'The  Practise  of  the 
Presence  of  God,'  by  Brother  Lawrence,  Jeremy 
Taylor's  'Holy  Living  and  Dying,'  the  'Lives  of 
the  Saints,'  by  Williamson." 

{Is  that  the  right  title?) 


Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints       43 

*'The  'Lives  of  the  Saints'  by  Williamson,  'Men 
and  Martyrs'  by  Manlius  Welby." 

{IV as  that  right?) 

*'Yes.  'Many  Men  of  Saintly  Life'  by  Wilkin- 
son  and  others.  'Father  John'  of  Russia/  I  don't 
remember  the  exact  title  of  his  book.  It  deals 
with  the  miracles  of  healing  performed  through 
the  Holy  Communion.  There  are  many  others 
but  these  especially  bear  on  points  I  want  to  bring 
out.  Of  course  they  must  be  read  from  the  point 
of  view  I  have  laid  down  for  you,  both  as  to 
measuring  them  by  the  One  and  Only  Standard, 
Christ,  and  also  as  contributing  their  part  to  the 
whole  revelation.  God  has  revealed  Himself 
always  through  the  lives  of  certain  men,  and  the 
study  of  the  lives  of  the  saints  would  be  of  very 
small  value  unless  they  sent  you  back  to  God  from 
whom  of  course  they  drew  all  their  power.  God 
made  man  in  His  Image;  to  be  His  temple;  to  be- 
come His  companion;  as  an  Instrument  through 
which  He  could  manifest  Himself  to  others,  until 
all  come  to  'the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the 
fulness  of  Christ.' 

"Most  people,  who  have  attained  to  mastery  in 
any  line,  have  learned  that  to  discover  as  far  as 


^  Ivan  Iliilch  Sergief.     Probably  his  Diary  is  indicated. 


44  The  One  Way 

possible  the  laws  of  that  with  which  they  are  work- 
ing, then  to  work  in  harmony  with  those  laws, 
yielding  themselves  as  freely  as  possible  to  the 
element  in  which  they  work,  brings  the  most 
rapid  success.  Take  as  an  example  the  athlete. 
He  trains  his  muscle  but  he  must  keep  his  supple- 
ness and  freedom  of  motion  or  he  instantly  loses 
power,  but  he  must  never  descend  to  sloth  or  relax 
to  the  degree  of  loss  of  power.  Now  you  have 
got  to  learn  to  become  fluid.  Here  we  speak  of 
a  person's  essential  essence.'* 

(Once  when  I  was  meditating  wHh  a  friend  and 
had  felt  an  intense  sense  of  God's  presence  and 
power,  I  felt  as  if  I  were  partially  outside  and 
above  my  own  body  which  was  lying  on  the  bed. 
What  zvas  that?) 

*' Probably  you  were  so  closely  united  to  our 
Heavenly  Father  that  your  essential  essence  had 
partially  passed  out  of  your  body,  but  I  cannot 
speak  with  authority  about  it.  It  is  a  possible 
thing  to  be  done,  but  an  extremely  dangerous  one 
if  practised  under  any  but  the  highest  spiritual 
conditions.  No  such  experience  should  be  sought 
for  itself.  If  It  occurs  in  the  course  of  prayer 
that  is  one  thing,  but  seeking  spiritual  experiences 
of  such  kind,  except  as  they  may  occur  in  the 
course  of  prayer  and  adoration,  is  not  only  dan- 


Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints       45 

gerous  but  wrong.  In  spiritual  things  never  work 
for  the  loaves  and  fishes.  One  reason  why  people 
so  often  fail  to  receive  spiritual  healing  of  bodily 
ills  is,  that  they  seek  the  healing,  the  relief  from 
pain,  as  the  end,  whereas  it  should  not  be  the  end 
but  an  incident  in  their  growing  knowledge  and 
worship  of  God.  Seek  Him.  When  you  have 
reached  Him  you  will  be  healed  and  you  can  be- 
come ^perfect  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is 
perfect.'  God  is  the  heart  of  the  universe,  and 
as  your  blood  flows  from  your  heart  to  all  parts 
of  your  body,  so  God's  power  can  flow  to  every 
part  of  the  universe,  filling,  energizing,  healing 
every  soul  who  desires  to  receive  Him.  Desires 
is  not  quite  the  right  word,  because  It  does  not 
signify  a  determination  to  lay  down  your  will  and 
do  His;  a  determination  as  hard  as  adamant,  yet 
as  free  and  fluid  as  the  flowing  seas." 

{Could  we  get  it  a  little  clearer  about  my  per- 
haps  writing  down  my  ideas  or  influencing  the 
pencil  from  the  point  of  view  of  this  world,  of 
people  other  than  myself?  I  think  it  will  take 
from  the  strength  and  power  of  your  message 
if  our  readers  feel  that  I  influenced  what  was 
written,) 

"We  can  make  that  clear.  Not  one  single  word 
have  you  written,  without  my  full  assent,  except 


46  The  One  Way 

when  I  have  crossed  it  out.  I  am  the  master  in 
this  situation  because  you  are  willingly  yielding 
your  hand  an  instrument  to  me.  I  think  the 
thoughts  to  your  mind  and  you  write  them  down, 
and  when  you  get  tired  or  stop  receiving  freely  I 
send  you  to  bed  or  out  of  doors.^ 

*'The  chief  trouble  with  the  world  today  is  that 
men  and  women  are  not  clear  about  the  purpose 
they  mean  to  serve.  There  are  only  seven  purposes 
in  the  universe.  They  are  progress,  healing,  light, 
power  or  force,  building  or  production,  trutli  and 
love,  which  includes  justice  and  service.  Here  we 
come  to  one  of  our  great  limitations.  Those  seven 
words  are  the  nearest  I  can  come  to  naming  the 
seven  purposes,  but  they  are  inadequate  and  you 
can't  understand  until  you  attain  to  more  complete 
knowledge.  But  take  it  practically.  Look  into 
the  lives  about  you — your  own  and  others.  Aren't 
all  the  people — with  a  very  few  exceptions — try- 
ing to  grasp  at  too  many  things?  They  want  edu- 
cation, possessions,  development,  pleasures,  riches, 
and  in  the  end,  feebly,  spiritual  things. 

"That  is  making  things  topsy  turvy.  If  you 
have  spiritual  things  first,  the  other  things  natur- 
ally follow.     God  put  you  into  the  world.     'Your 


^  This  writing  was  done  chiefly  in  the  evening. 


Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints       47 

Heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of 
these  things.  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you.' 

"It  Is  an  absolute  impossibility  to  state  too 
strongly  the  need  of  singleness  of  heart  and  pur- 
pose. The  confusion  in  people's  minds  as  to 
which  of  two  courses  to  follow  Is  responsible  for 
the  greatest  amount  of  harm  both  to  individuals 
and  to  the  whole  destiny  of  man.  You  should 
train  yourselves  and  your  children  how  to  make 
decisions  quickly  and  clearly.  It  can  be  trained 
just  as  definitely  as  you  can  train  your  muscles  for 
any  purpose  you  choose  to  work  for.  It  is  a  part 
of  that  training  of  the  Instincts  of  which  I  have 
told  you  so  many  times.  God  made  man  capable 
of  discerning  between  good  and  evil  and  you 
should  be  able  to  do  it  promptly. 

"The  most  important  thing  to  be  taught  Is  a 
power  of  decision,  which  is  now  greatly  lacking 
both  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race  at  large. 
Many  of  the  most  serious  difficulties  arise  from 
indecision.  The  capacity  to  make  true  acts  of  will 
has  not  been  taught  because  many  people  do  not 
know  what  a  true  act  of  wall  is  in  the  sense  of  not 
being  able  to  analyze  an  act  of  will  nor  to  make 
one  on  command.  By  that  I  mean,  if  I  say  to  you, 
'Make   an  act  of  will,'  you  don't  know  what  I 


48  The  One  Way 

mean.  Most  people  would  not  have  the  least  idea 
how  to  begin.  If  you  take  an  Individual  who  has 
a  naturally  strong  will  and  clear  understanding, 
place  him  in  a  situation  demanding  quick  and  in- 
telligent action,  he  will  make  his  act  of  will  splen- 
didly but  automatically.  Take  the  same  person 
and  ask  him  to  make  an  act  of  will  and  he  will 
not  have  any  idea  how  he  does  it,  or  where.  Ten 
to  one  he  will  say,  'I  make  my  decisions  In  my 
brain.'  He  does  not.  The  Intellect  may  or  may 
not  assent  to  the  act  of  will,  but  the  act  of  will  Is 
far  more  simple  and  elemental — it  is  not  made  in 
the  intellect.  The  will  is  the  most  fundamental 
part  of  man.  You  make  your  act  of  will  where 
you  know  the  difference  between  good  and  evil, 
in  the  centre  of  your  being,  in  your  soul.  The 
psychologists  of  today  spend  a  lot  of  time  talking 
over  what  is  the  nature  of  the  subconscious  mind, 
the  functional  brain.  I  tell  you  that  this  is  your 
soul,  the  essential  you,  the  undying  worm.  It  is 
there  that  you  make  your  acts  of  will,  your  true 
decisions.  The  will  is,  as  I  have  repeated  over 
and  over,  the  most  fundamental  part  of  man's  na- 
ture. It  is  therefore  essential  that  men  should 
be  able  to  make  true  acts  of  will,  clear  decisions, 
discern  clearly  and  promptly  between  two  courses. 
These  acts  of  will  are  made  at  the  centre  of  your 


Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints       49 

being.  Men  call  it  the  subconscious  mind  or  the 
functional  brain.  It  is  your  soul.  Please  note 
that  from  now  on  when  I  say  your  soul,  that  in- 
cludes what  you  call  the  subconscious  mind.  After 
the  decision  has  been  made  in  the  soul,  it  is  im- 
portant that  the  intellect  should  assent  in  order 
to  give  the  soul  full  freedom  and  enable  it  to  be 
your  guide. 

*'The  whole  matter  is  so  subtle,  yet  withal  so 
utterly  simple,  that  I  find  it  almost  impossible  to 
use  human  words  to  express  my  meaning.  It  Is  of 
the  most  fundamental  Importance  that  I  get  this 
over  clearly  and  that  you  understand  and  then  that 
you  Incorporate  It  into  your  daily  life.  The  In- 
stincts which  I  have  urged  you  to  train  are  the 
same  thing,  the  soul  life.  It  Is  though  his  soul 
that  man  approacHes  to  God,  through  his  soul  that 
he  hears  the  guiding  voice  of  God  and  feels  what 
we  here  call  the  rhythm  of  the  universe.  The 
peace  of  God  which  passeth  understanding  is  again 
the  rhythm  of  the  Creator.  It  Is  at  once  universal 
and  most  intensely  personal  from  the  Father  to 
the  child.  The  more  a  man  lives  within  the  rhythm 
of  God,  the  more  power  he  attains  to.  Now  it 
is  not  a  gift  reserved  for  the  few,  but  a  common 
universal  right  of  every  child  of  God.  I  have 
said  you  were  to  train  the  instincts.     You  must 


50  The  One  Way 

train  your  souls,  that  is  one  and  the  same  thing. 
It  is  simple.  It  is  not  unlike  the  training  required 
for  the  muscles.  It  must  be  simple  at  first,  even 
trivial,  then  increasing  in  importance.  A  true  act 
of  will  must  follow  these  three  rules:  it  must  be 
possible,  it  must  be  single,  it  must  be  sincere.  Let 
us  say  you  are  reading;  you  glance  up  and  see  that 
a  picture  is  crooked  and  you  make  an  act  of  will 
to  straighten  it.  First,  the  straightening  must 
be  a  possibility;  second,  it  must  be  single,  i.e.,  you 
must  not  say  'If  I  can  find  the  stepladder  I  will 
straighten  that  picture.'  In  case  the  stepladder  is 
necessary  to  enable  you  to  put  it  straight  you 
would,  during  the  process  of  training  your  self  in 
making  true  acts  of  will,  have  to  make  two  sepa- 
rate acts  of  will — The  first,  'I  will  go  get  the  step- 
ladder';  that  is  one  complete  act  of  will.  Then 
make  a  second  one,  'I  will  straightetn  that  pic- 
ture.' Thirdly,  in  both  cases  you  must  be  sincere 
in  your  determination  to  get  the  stepladder  and 
to  straighten  the  picture. 

"Why  all  this  history  over  a  tiny  act  of  that 
kind  that  is  thought  of,  done,  forgotten  in  a 
second?  Because  a  large  proportion  of  the  men 
and  women  in  the  world  look  at  the  picture  and 
see  the  need  of  straightening  it  and  say  vaguely 
to   themselves,    'I   must   straighten   that  picture.' 


Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints       51 

They  finish  reading  and  forget  it  and  have  put, 
according  to  the  old  saying,  a  paving  stone  In 
hell.  Instead  of  being  clear,  Incisive  doers  of  the 
right  they  have  done  a  deterrent  act.  They  saw 
what  w^as  right  to  do  and  straightway  forgot  what 
manner  of  man  they  are  and  never  did  what  they 
ought  to  have  done.  By  the  time  a  man  or  woman 
has  repeated  that  kind  of  vagueness  a  few  thou- 
sand of  times,  he  has  Injured  his  own  powders 
both  Intellectual  and  spiritual.  He  has  committed 
many  trivial  deterrent  acts,  each  of  seemingly  no 
importance  in  itself,  but  deteriorating  his  powers. 
It  Is  not  necessary  to  get  up  from  your  reading  to 
straighten  that  picture.  If  you  make  a  true  act  of 
will  it  Is  done  In  one  flash,  not  requiring  to  be 
mentally  expressed  in  words,  'When  I  am  done 
reading  I  will  get  the  steps  and  straighten  that 
picture.'  The  single-minded,  efficient  man  does 
straighten  It  when  he  gets  up  and  that  is  wiped  off 
the  slate.  He  doesn't  have  to  tire  his  over-taxed 
brain  by  remembering  when  he  is  halfway  down 
town,  'Oh,  I  didn't  straighten  that  picture!' 

"There  will  be  three  classes  of  readers  of  this 
passage.  The  man  who  habitually  makes  clear, 
true  acts  of  will  will  call  the  whole  thing  trash. 
He  has  never  broken  down  his  power  of  will.  He 
doesn't  know  that  the  reason  so  many  people  he 


52  The  One  Way 

has  to  deal  with  are  incompetent  and  good  for 
nothing  is  that  they  did  not  Inherit  strong,  decisive 
wills  and  no  one  has  trained  their  wills  to  make 
them  strong.  The  second  class  are  those  who, 
through  shock,  illness,  or  bad,  slack  mental  habits 
have  lost  their  will  power,  they  will  read  with  joy 
and  realize  that  there  is  hope  and  renewal  ahead 
of  them.  The  third  class  are  those  who  were 
born  with  weakened  will  power  and  never  have 
been  taught.  The  first  and  second  classes  must 
take  care  of  the  third  class  and  teach  them. 

"The  cases  of  reformed  men  and  women  who 
were  apparently  reformed  by  a  miracle  are  simply 
cases  where  some  shock  has  startled  them,  and 
their  whole  will  power  has  been  so  aroused  that 
they  have  risen  up  and  made  one  tremendous  act 
of  will  which  has  changed  their  whole  lives.  It 
Is  not  a  miracle — at  least,  If  by  miracle  you  mean 
something  outside  of  law — it  is  simply  the  work- 
ing of  a  common  everyday  law,  but  one  with  which 
you  are  not  consciously  familiar.  Now  get  fa- 
miliar with  that  law  and  begin  to  use  it,  just  as 
you  have  chained  the  lightning  to  light  your 
houses. 

"It  Is  simply  Impossible  to  exaggerate  the  Im- 
portance of  this.  The  central  empire  was  com- 
pletely united,  hence  her  success.    When  the  Allies 


Of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints       53 

became  truly  united  they  were  victorious.  Most 
of  the  men  and  women  you  know  are  like  the 
Allies  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  war.  Their 
central  purpose  is  to  serve  God,  but  they  commit 
so  many  deterrent  acts  (you  call  them  sins)  that 
they  lose  their  singleness  of  heart  and  neither  they 
themselves  nor  their  friends  know  where  they 
stand.  You  must  find  out  your  place  in  God's 
scheme  and  then  turn  neither  to  the  right  nor  the 
left,  pursue  it  for  your  life,  pursue  it  as  the  miser 
pursues  gold,  with  absolute  singleness  of  heart. 
*Be  '^e  therefore  perfect  as  your  Father  In  heaven 
is  perfect'  That  Is  no  unattainable  counsel  of 
perfection.  Seek  only  one  thing,  God,  and  His 
righteousness,  and  you  will  become  so  filled  with 
His  indwelling  power  that  you  will  be  one  with 
His  perfection — not  man  made  In  the  image  of 
God,  but  man  in  absolute  union  with  God.  So 
shall  ye  dominate  all  things." 


CHAPTER  IV 

On  Cooperation  between  Those  on  Earth 
AND  THE  Departed 

**^T^HIS  chapter  is  to  deal  with  the  question  of 
-■-  how  you  can  help  us  and  how  we  can  help 
you.  I  have  touched  on  the  subject  of  thought 
language.  The  language  of  heaven  is  governed 
by  love.  The  thought  language  is  that  used  by  all 
disembodied  spirits;  deterrent  spirits  use  it  also; 
they  are  not  governed  by  the  law  of  love.  You 
all  know  much  more  of  this  thought  language 
than  you  realize.  People  on  earth  who  are  very 
sympathetic  are  often  able  to  read  each  other's 
unspoken  thoughts.  Under  certain  conditions 
people  can  send  their  thought  definitely  to  each 
other  though  separated  by  distance.  These  ex- 
periences are  all  commonly  classed  under  the  term 
telepathy.  The  first  step  in  our  mutual  coopera- 
tion is  for  you  to  recognize  that  you  can  and  do 
receive  thoughts  from  us — and  to  practice  it  con- 
sciously. This  involves  a  serious  danger  unless 
done  with  the  highest  purpose.  You  are  familiar 
with  the  fact  that  a  wireless  instrument  receives 

54 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead     55 

the  message  to  which  it  is  attuned  but  cannot  re- 
ceive that  to  which  it  is  not  attuned.  Now  you, 
each  one  of  you,  hold  the  power  of  deciding  abso- 
lutely what  messages  you  will  receive;  to  what 
class  of  message  you  will  be  attuned.  If  you  are 
controlled,  clear,  concise,  and  refuse  to  admit  any 
interference  with  mischievous  or  deterrent  spirits, 
they  cannot  get  in — but  be  sure  they  will  not  cease 
trying  to  get  in,  and  if  you  become  undecided,  lazy 
or  slothful,  beware,  for  they  will  come  at  once 
and  give  you  thought  messages.  Satan  walking 
to  and  fro  in  the  earth  seeking  whom  he  may  de- 
vour, is  no  bad  image. 

"The  same  clearness  of  which  I  have  spoken  in 
regard  to  acts  of  will  is  demanded  here  in  con- 
sciously receiving  thought  messages  from  us  or  in 
sending  them  to  us.  You  must  be  single-minded. 
St.  James  says,  'A  double-minded  man  is  unstable 
in  all  his  ways.'  To  many  people,  consciously  to 
receive  or  send  thought  messages  will  at  first  de- 
mand a  good  deal  of  effort  at  mental  self-control, 
but  the  prize  Is  worth  all  the  price  that  must  be 
paid  for  it.  Mrs.  Burke  has  given  in  her  Intro- 
duction, a  very  good  suggestion  of  how  to  practice 
receiving  a  thought  message.  The  real  you  is 
what  you  are  in  your  mind  and  soul  and  heart, 
not  what  you  are  in  your  fleshly  body.    Five  min- 


56  The  One  Way 

utes  after  death  your  essential  self  is  just  what  it 
was  five  minutes  before  death.  Of  course  in  say- 
ing that,  I  am  thinking  of  a  person  to  whom  death 
comes  when  they  are  in  health  and  full  possession 
of  their  powers." 

{Do  you  mean  if  phey  were  not  hi  possession  of 
their  full  powers  before  death  the  infirmity  would 
not  he  carried  on?) 

^'Exactly.  Almost  immediately  after  death  you 
find  yourself  possessed  of  the  power  to  read  or 
hear  thoughts.  As  that  is  the  case,  you  can  easily 
see  how  soon  with  conscious  practice  you  could 
learn  to  receive  direct  clear  conscious  communica- 
tions with  us.  Without  your  cooperation  we  can 
only  communicate  our  thoughts  to  you,  provided 
all  conditions  are  favorable.  Sometimes  that 
means  months  or  years  of  waiting.  Simple  people 
are  the  easiest  to  reach.  The  more  complex  you 
are  the  more  difficult  it  is  to  us  to  get  in.  The 
most  highly  educated  and  intellectual  men  are 
frequently  very  complex  and  very  difficult  to  in- 
fluence. The  truest  greatness  is,  however,  simple. 
Your  intellectual  development  is  an  advantage  to 
us,  besides  carrying  much  miore  weight  in  your  life, 
especially  to  your  most  powerfuly  developed 
thinkers.  Therefore,  we  want  you  to  cooperate 
to  retrain  your  instincts.     We  need  your  whole 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead     57 

man  in  its  highest  perfection,  and  that  can  only 
be  reached  by  your  being  more  direct,  less  com- 
plex. Your  houses,  your  food,  your  dress  are  all 
too  elaborate.  The  paraphernalia  of  your  lives  is 
too  complicated.  During  the  war  everything  was 
simplified  and  almost  every  one  preferred  that 
simplicity.  Why  have  you  gone  right  back  to  the 
old  way? 

''What  I  want  to  teach  you  is  as  old  as  the  hills 
and  as  simple  as  A,  B,  C,  yet  you  do  not  see  it 
and  believe  it  and  live  It.  We  here  stand  for  God 
clearly  and  strongly  (I  am  using  human  expres- 
sions) because  here  you  either  stand  for  God  or 
against  Him.  There  is  no  half  way  or  mixture 
of  motives.  On  earth  you  can  change  back  and 
forth.  Here  you  either  do  His  will  with  all  your 
heart  and  soul  and  strength  or  you  are  deterrent. 
Now  what  I  want  you  to  do  is  the  old  thing  of 
making  your  choice  on  earth — once  for  all  decide 
to  stand  for  God  and  give  up  divided  motives. 
We  who  stand  for  God,  when  we  know  a  thing 
is  right,  do  it  quickly.  You  must  gain  the  same 
directness  and  decision.  The  chance  is  given  to 
all  human  beings  who  live  on  earth  to  make  their 
choice.  There  are  individuals  who  never  have 
that  chance  during  their  earthly  life,  but  they 
belong  to  another  class.    I  refer  to  defectives  and 


58  The  One  Way 

a  few  isolated  Individuals,  and  I  am  not  including 
them  at  present.  I  want  you  to  get  the  Eternal 
point  of  view  and  do  nothing  which  won't  be  an 
advantage  to  you  when  you,  too,  have  passed 
through  the  change  called  death.  You  all  try  to 
keep  away  from  smallpox  and  leprosy.  The 
mental  habits  of  indecision,  the  inability  to  make 
true  acts  of  will,  are  responsible  for  more  evils 
than  you  conceive.  From  my  point  of  view  now 
I  would  rather  have  suffered  in  my  flesh  all  dis- 
eases rather  than  that  of  indecision.  That  has  a 
spiritual  significance  compared  with  which  no 
mere  disease  of  the  flesh  is  of  any  consequence, 
because  that  is  a  soul  disease.  That  is  a  result  of, 
and  also  a  cause  of,  diseased  moral  fibre.  You 
can't  greatly  help  us  here  in  this  great  crisis  unless 
you  can  get  this  clear,  and  act  on  it.  God  put 
you  in  your  world.  He  knows  you  have  to  work 
for  food  and  raiment,  but  you  don't  have  to  do 
dishonest  things  in  order  to  make  extra  money,  so 
that  you  can  buy  finer  clothes  and  houses  and 
lands  than  your  neighbors.  You  want  to  give 
your  children  advantages.  By  all  means,  but 
make  sure  that  you  give  them  real  and  enduring 
advantages.  Roughly  speaking,  in  one  hundred 
years  every  soul  now  on  earth  will  be  here  with 
us,  and  they  will  leave  their  earthly  possessions 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead    59 

behind  and  stand  bare  of  all  surroundings  and 
will  only  possess  what  they  are.  You  know  that. 
Why  do  you,  so  many  of  you,  ignore  it?  The  first 
shall  be  last  and  the  last  first.  It  may  be  that 
the  most  despised  of  earth's  creatures,  one  who 
had  no  chance  to  learn  anything  but  evil,  yet  who 
had  a  little  spark  of  love  in  his  heart  and  made 
this  choice  for  God  and  goodness  at  some  time 
that  was  the  determining  chance  of  his  life,  will 
take  precedence  of  men  who  have  done  many 
good  acts  yet  whose  first  purpose  was  material  ad- 
vantages, not  God's  service.  You  can't  deceive 
God  and  you  can't  deceive  your  own  soul.  If  you, 
with  honesty,  look  deep  into  your  own  heart  you 
know  whether  you  stand  for  God." 

{Am  I  being  difficult  to-day ^  or  is  it  that  the 
message  is  difficult?) 

"Both.  You  feel  you  know  too  much  what  I 
want  to  say  and  you  don't  at  all.  And  also  what 
I  want  to  say  is  very  hard  to  put  in  forcible  lan- 
guage because  you  know  It  all  already,  but  the 
world  is  not  acting  up  to  it.  People  have  read  so 
much  and  tried  to  use  their  puny  intellects  to  solve 
questions  that  are  too  difficult  for  them  to  such  an 
extent  that  they  have  become  entirely  befogged 
over  those  simple  straight  things  which,  if  they 
would  live  them  in  their  daily  lives,  would  so  ad- 


6o  The  One  Way 

vance  the  whole  sum  of  human  knowledge  and 
experience  that  you  could  advance  to  subjects  that 
are  now  beyond  you." 

{Can  you  explain  why  recourse  to  familiar, 
spirits  is  forbidden  in  the  Bible?) 

"Why,  of  course  I  can.  The  people  tried  to 
get  directions  from  spirits  on  points  which  they 
should  have  decided  themselves,  or  gone  direct  to 
God  for  wisdom.  If  you  learn  consciously  to  re- 
ceive thought  messages  and  then  start  asking  ques- 
tions to  satisfy  your  idle  curiosity  or  to  find  out 
things  you  should  find  out  for  yourselves,  you  will 
be  doing  the  same  thing  that  was  forbidden.  You 
can't  come  to  us  to  get  our  help  on  matters  you 
ought  to  decide  yourselves.  That  would  weaken 
your  moral  fibre." 

{It  seems  very  complicated  to  understand  how 
we  can  help  you  if  we  are  not  to  ask  questions  and 
advice. ) 

"While  it  Is  just  a  probem  on  paper  it  may 
seem  so,  but  when  you  begin  to  live  it  out  in  your 
life  It  will  smooth  out." 

{It  seems  to  me  that  the  thing  that  stands  in 
the  way  of  so  many  people  is  that  they  doubt  an 
existence  after  death,  or  if  they  believe  in  it,  it  is 
so  vague  as  to  be  negligible,) 

"Yes,  that  is  the  reason  that  we  are  being  per- 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead     6l 

mitted  to  use  this  means  of  communication — be- 
cause the  love  of  the  Father  is  so  great  that  he 
permits  us  to  meet  the  true  and  great  desire  of 
this  time  to  bridge  the  chasm.  It  is  not  the  only 
way,  as  you  know  from  personal  experience,  but 
it  is  the  only  way  that  certain  spiritually  unde- 
veloped people  can  get  it,  and  It  Is  permitted  now. 
The  thought  messages  are  the  best  way.  That  is 
the  reason  why  you  are  to  make  every  effort  to 
consciously  learn  how  to  receive  and  send  them. 
For  Instance,  you  asked  your  husband  what  made 
the  pain  in  your  foot.  [See  Afterword,  July 
17th,  9.30  P.M.]  Now  you  consciously  sought  his 
help.  He  told  you  to  turn  to  God  who  Is  the 
source  of  all  health  and  healing.  You  obeyed 
and  that  enabled  your  husband  to  help  you  much 
more  effectively  than  he  could  have  done  without 
your  cooperation.  He  might  have  helped  you, 
your  mutual  love  forming  a  channel,  but  not  as 
he  did.  You  have  your  minds  and  you  must  use 
them. 

*'We  have  gone  very  clearly  into  the  matter  of 
God's  not  forcing  any  one  of  His  children  to  serve 
Him  or  to  let  Him  into  their  lives  and  hearts 
unless  they  choose.  In  a  lesser  degree  the  same 
is  true  of  us.  We  cannot  force  our  help  upon  you. 
You  must  not  only  help  yourselves  but  you  must 


62  The  One  Way 

deserve  our  help  and  open  yourselves  to  it,  if  we 
are  to  accomplish  what  we  are  desirous  and  able 
to  accomplish  for  you.  We  have  together  one 
great  barrier  to  break  down — the  world-wide  idea 
of  separation  between  our  life  here  and  your  life 
there.  A  certain  very  real  separation  there  must 
always  remain,  but  if  you  will  help  us,  we  can 
bridge  it  over  in  a  marvelous  degree.  There  is 
no  death.  There  is  life  with  you,  a  very  embryo 
kind  of  life  it  looks  to  us  from  here,  and  with  us 
there  is  the  beginning  of  absolute  perfection.  You 
know  in  your  own  life  that  you  cannot  give  to  an- 
other person  the  advantage  of  your  experience  in 
any  given  line,  unless  they  are  willing  to  receive 
it.  If  they  are  headstrong  and  obstinate  it  is  no  use 
to  try  and  help  them,  but  given  an  individual,  who 
is  preparing  to  go  through  an  experience  which 
you  have  already  had,  and  who  is  ready  to  learn 
from  you,  you  can  help  him  enormously.  You 
call  that  being  open-minded.  Now  we  want  you 
to  go  a  step,  and  a  long  step,  further,  and  learn 
to  be  fluid-minded.  That  doesn't  mean  that  you 
have  got  to  be  colorless,  weak  creatures.  You 
not  only  may,  but  must,  prove  by  living  what  we 
will  give  you,  but  your  conservative-mindedness 
is  no  longer  a  virtue.  You  must  get  freedom  and 
vision.      Try  the  spirits'    (I   John  4-1)    by  all 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead     63 

means,  but  don't  refuse  to  listen  to  them,  to  give 
them  a  trial.     If  the  Christian  church  had  not  al- 
most completely  forgotten  the  fact  of  the  miracles 
of  healing,   performed  by  Christ,   it  would  not 
have  been  necessary  to  form  a  whole  new  cult  to 
bring  to  light  the  fact  that  God  has  lost  none  of 
the  power  that  He  once  had.     Christian  Science 
has  lost  a  very  valuable  something,  because  It  had 
to  go  outside  the  historic  Church  to  proclaim  the 
truth  which  Christ  taught,   and  which  has  been 
kept  alive  In  certain  Isolated  cases  through  all  the 
centuries.      Don't  make   so   sure   that   automatic 
Tvritlng  is  some  fearful  new  Invention  of  the  devil, 
and  so  drive  the  truth  which  should  be  within  the 
historic   Church  outside  it.      Men  are   so  small- 
minded.     Because  a  person  or  a  book  has  some 
trait  or  part  that  is  repugnant,  or  even  distasteful 
to  them,  they  condemn  the  whole  thing  as  worth- 
less or  low.    Now  the  Protestant  world,  horrified 
at  an  abuse  of  offering  prayer  to  the  saints,  has 
for    centuries    forbidden    prayer    for    the    dead. 
Your  dead  are  still  far,  very  far  from  perfection, 
and  they  have  to  grow  and  develop  in  God's  keep- 
ing.     You  cause  your  dear  ones  great  pain  by 
shutting   them   out   of  your   lives,    putting   them 
utterly  away  from  you.    Your  prayer  to  God  for 
them  helps  keep  you  open  and  enables  them  to 


\ 


64  The  One  Way 

help  you.  If  you  went  to  a  distant  part  of  the 
earth  to  live,  and  your  nearest  and  dearest  never 
wrote  to  you  or  sent  you  anything  or  came  to  see 
you,  you  would  be  not  only  intensely  pained  but 
it  probably  would  result  in  maiming  you.  You 
would  probably  become  so  bitter  that  your  de- 
velopment would  be  partially  arrested.  It  is 
somewhat  the  same  thing  that  can  happen  here. 
This  is  very  difficult  to  get  over.  The  souls  who 
come  here  are  occasionally  held  back  in  their  de- 
velopment by  the  pain  of  being  shut  out  by  those 
they  love  on  earth,  but  that  is  rare  and  is  partially 
because  they  are  not  spiritually  developed  enough 
to  completely  trust  God,  and  is  a  temporary  hold- 
ing them  back,  but  those  who  are  left  on  earth, 
who  mourn  their  dear  ones  here  and  yet  wholly 
shut  them  out  are  often  maimed.  Suppose  your 
dear  ones  have  had  much  pain  and  suffering  in 
their  earthly  life  and  you  can  rise  to  being  glad 
that  they  are  delivered  from  that,  but  can  never 
cease  to  regret  the  joys  of  earth  that  they  are 
losing,  and  never  allow  yourself  to  give  up  the 
idea  that  they  would  have  been  better  off  there. 
They  on  their  side  are  longing  to  tell  you  of  the 
unutterable  joy  and  development  that  is  theirs, 
longing  to  have  you  share  first  in  imagination  and 
spiritual  understanding,  and  then,  when  the  time 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead    65 

comes,  in  reality,  that  marvelous  life  that  is  theirs, 
and  you  are  dragging  them  back  to  some  lost  plea- 
sures of  earth.  If  a  woman  had  a  son  who  had 
become  a  hero — a  leader  among  leaders — and  in- 
stead of  rejoicing  in  his  greatness  and  the  develop- 
ment of  his  life  and  power,  she  was  always  wishing 
him  back  in  the  nursery,  playing  with  tin  trains 
and  toy  ships,  you  would  judge  her  unfit  to  be 
the  mother  of  such  a  man.  You  would  say  he 
never  took  his  great  qualities  from  her.  You 
simply  don't  believe  that  'eye  hath  not  seen  nor 
ear  heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart 
of  man  the  things  that  God  hath  prepared  for 
them  that  love  Him'  (I  Cor.  2:9).  You  marvel 
at  the  unutterable  wonders  of  your  tiny  star.  You 
want  your  dear  ones  to  taste  earthly  love,  travel, 
discovery,  companionship.  'God  is  not  a  man 
that  He  should  lie.'  In  countless  ways  He  has 
taught  you  the  truth  of  the  future  life.  Behold 
a  worm  crawling  on  the  ground,  afraid  to  become 
a  butterfly  and  soar  above.  Don't  think  I  am  call- 
ing you  worms.  I,  too,  am  a  man  and  the  angels 
revere  men.  The  man  who  can  say  truly,  and 
mean  it,  'Though  He  slay  me  yet  will  I  trust 
Him,'  is  an  object  of  the  greatest  reverence  and 
honour  to  those  who  have  always  lived  where  faith 
is  lost  in  sight.     But  if  a  worm  refused  to  become 


66  The  One  Way 

a  butterfly  it  would  not  be  half  so  silly  as  thou- 
sands— nay,  millions — of  intelligent  men  and 
women  who  refuse  to  believe  in  the  future  life. 
'The  last  enemy  that  shall  be  overcome  is  death.' 
The  first  step  in  overcoming  that  last  enemy  is  to 
believe  in  the  life  beyond — not  to  say  you  believe 
but  to  realize — to  know  that  we  who  have  passed 
over  are  ten  thousand  times  more  alive  than  we 
were  on  your  side. 

*'I  must  warn  you  once  more  of  the  tremendous 
danger  of  becoming  fluid  and  open,  unless  you  are 
absolutely  clear  that  you  mean  to  serve  God  and 
Him  alone.  You  can  protect  yourselves  utterly, 
but  the  chances  of  death  are  infinitely  greater  than 
in  dealing  with  the  worst  and  most  death-dealing 
electrical  machines,  because  it  is  not  the  death  of 
the  body  you  are  in  danger  of,  it's  the  crippling 
of  your  souls.  Yet  you  can  know  absolutely  what 
kind  of  spirits  you  are  dealing  with;  far  more 
certainly,  if  you  take  the  proper  training,  than 
you  can  with  living  men  and  women,  because  on 
earth  people's  motives  and  purposes  are  so  mixed 
that  the  man  who  is  deterrent  today  may  be 
strongly  for  God  next  time  you  meet  him.  Here, 
we  either  serve  God  or  we  don't." 

{Do  I  understand  that  a  spirit  who  has  beert 
deterrent  can  turn  and  become  God's  servant?) 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead     67 

''Why  certainly!  When  they  have  finally 
worked  their  way  through  the  remorse  and  wish 
to  return,  it  Is  possible. 

"The  most  spiritually  developed  of  those  who 
are  consciously  doing  automatic  writing  will  tell 
you  that  they  can  tell  at  once  when  an  interference 
occurs.    If  you  are  spiritually  keen  and  absolutely 
set  to  do  God's  will  and  His  will  alone,  you  would 
detect   the   deterrent  spirit  far  more   quickly   in 
automatic  writing  than  over  the  telephone.     Now 
you  know  quite  well  that  the  men  or  women  who 
are  very  keenly  developed  spiritually  detect  in- 
stantly the  suggestion  of  sin,  no  matter  how  subtle. 
W^hy  then,  when  you  have  accepted  that  ages  ago, 
is  it  so  very  difficult  to  think  of  practising  the 
thought  language  consciously?     You  all  of  you 
practise  It  unconsciously  continually.     The  way  to 
cooperate  with  us  is  to  begin  to  do  consciously  and 
intelligently    that   which   you    have    done    uncon- 
sciously, blindly.     But  don't  let  any  one  think  it  is 
purely  or  even  chiefly  an  exercise  of  the  Intellect 
that  I  am  asking  you  to  learn.    The  Intellect  must 
play  its   part  surely,  but  the   instinctive   or   soul 
nature  must  be  developed  chiefly  to  this  end.     It 
is  not  that  the  instincts  are  greater  than  the  In- 
tellect.    But  you  have  neglected  the  instincts  so 
terribly  that  to  bring  your  threefold  nature  up,  you 


68  The  One  Way 

must  for  a  time  concentrate  upon  the  instinctive 
side  of  your  nature.  To  try  to  put  into  human 
language  the  unutterable,  the  inexpressible,  let  me 
say,  the  mind  of  God,  the  heart  of  Christ  and  the 
soul  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Remember  that  can't  be 
expressed  in  thought,  can  far  less  be  put  into 
words,  yet  it  may  give  you  the  shadow  of  an  idea. 
One  of  the  greatest  causes  of  unbelief  today  is  the 
insistence  of  those  who  are  now  here  who  taught 
dogmatically;  who  tried  to  set  down  in  words  and 
doctrines  the  eternal  verities  of  God  which  will 
take  us  all  eternity  to  fully  understand.  But  don't 
make  the  mistake  of  throwing  over  all  doctrines. 
As  long  as  the  human  race  remains  on  earth  they 
will  have  to  try  to  find  human  words  to  express 
those  inexpressible  truths  of  God.  As  soon  as  you 
recognize  the  Inability  of  the  vehicle  of  words  to 
carry  the  unutterable  truths  of  God,  you  will  begin 
to  wonder  at  the  marvelous  attempts  men  have 
made  to  express  the  Inexpressible.  The  more  you 
develop  and  grow  in  spiritual  understanding,  the 
more  Truth  you  will  see  behind  the  old  dogmatic 
theological  efforts  of  great  men.  Of  course  you 
will  understand  that  here  I  am  speaking  of  the 
great  dogmas.  When  you  begin  to  try  and  express 
those  dogmas  in  terms  of  life,  always  recognizing 
their  partial  character,  you  will  find  that  there  Is 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead    69 

an  extraordinary  amount  of  truth  In  them.  In- 
stead of  cavilling  at  their  narrowness,  you  will 
wonder  at  their  nearness  to  the  truth,  at  the 
amount  of  truth  they  were  able  to  express.  You 
must  utterly  cut  out  from  your  mind  the  mental 
attitude,  'Believe  this  or  be  damned.* 

"  'There  is  now  no  condemnation  to  them  that 
love  the  Lord.'  This  is  literally  true,  therefore 
learn  to  love  God.  You  say,  how  shall  I  set  about 
it?  If  you  love  a  man  you  do  something  to  please 
him.  You  give  him  a  gift  or  you  render  him  a 
service,  and  if  he  has  done  anything  for  you  you 
thank  him  for  It  with  all  the  courtesy  and  warmth 
of  heart  you  possess.  Form  the  habit  of  thanking 
God,  talk  to  Him,  demand  His  counsel,  offer  Him 
gifts  of  all  you  have,  large,  free  gifts,  and  above 
all  give  Him  yourself,  your  loyalty,  your  whole 
life,  all  that  you  are.  Many  a  man  has  grown 
close  to  God  through  the  above  exercises.  Why 
not  you?  It  is  far  easier  to  be  a  friend  of  God's 
than  to  become  the  friend  of  the  wealthy  and 
powerful  of  your  earth.  God  wants  your  love  and 
friendship.  He  w^ants  exactly  such  service  and 
love  rendered  to  Him  as  you  would  render  to  your 
friend.  He  wants  you  to  prove  Him  by  treating 
Him  just  as  you  would  treat  an  earthly  friend. 
Go  to  Him.     Say,  'Why  don't  you  help  me?     I 


70  The  One  Way 

want  your  counsel  or  your  help.  My  father  or 
my  brother  would  help  me  in  this  undertaking 
(always  provided  it  is  in  accordance  with  God's 
will  and  for  His  glory),  why  don't  you?'  When 
you  want  your  father's  help  you  don't  sit  and 
vaguely  wish  he  would  help.  You  go  right  to  him 
with  a  proposition  and  you  insist  on  his  hearing 
your  plans  and  helping  you  out.  Do  the  same 
thing  with  God,  and  in  a  lesser  degree  do  the 
same  thing  with  those  of  us  here  whom  you  know 
you  can  trust.  Enter  into  conscious  partnership 
with  us,  demand  of  us,  let  us  help  you.  But  under- 
stand at  the  very  beginning  that  we  cannot,  rather 
will  not,  help  you  when  you  ought  to  turn  to 
God.  Perhaps  I  am  not  making  it  clear.  You 
go  outdoors  and  see  a  glorious  view,  a  beautiful 
day,  and  your  heart  expands  and  you  feel  it  is 
glorious  to  be  alive.  Say,  'Father,  I  thank  Thee 
for  this  glorious  view.  I  thank  Thee  for  all  this 
beauty  which  you  have  given  me.  I  thank  Thee 
for  so  having  made  me  that  I  am  capable  of  enjoy- 
ing it.  Help  me  to  enjoy  it  in  Thee  and  with 
Thee.'  As  this  habit  becomes  fixed,  you  will  find 
the  beauty  increased  tenfold,  just  as  you  enjoy 
your  day  out  of  doors  more  with  a  congenial  com- 
panion than  alone  or  with  one  whose  mind  and 
mood  grates  on  you.     Just  in  the  same  way,  per- 


Cooperation — Living  and  Dead     71 

haps,  you  have  tried  to  be  a  man  of  your  word, 
strictly  honesft,  scrupulously  true,  because  you 
think  that  the  decent  way  to  be.  Now  stop  and 
say,  'I  will  be  true  because  Thou  art  Truth.'  God 
made  you  for  His  companion,  and  how  long  has 
the  human  race  kept  Him  waiting  for  their  com- 
panionship? And  so  on  through  all  your  dally 
life  and  duties,  do  consciously  with  clear  intention 
of  love  and  service  to  Him  what  has  been  only  for 
righteousness  heretofore. 

"It  took  America  years  of  European  war  to 
realize  her  duty  and  go  in.  Oh!  I  beseech  you 
who  were  my  former  pupils,  if  you  have  found  any 
finger  pointing  toward  truth  In  my  works,  to  listen 
now  and  realize  the  magnitude  of  the  crisis.  You 
don't  have  to  give  up  your  pleasures,  your  amuse- 
ments, your  exercise,  but  take  God  Into  them,  let 
us  in;  clean  your  lives  of  double  motives  and 
double  standards,  believe  in  the  truth  of  this  book, 
believe  In  the  reality  of  the  life  we  lead.  It  is  the 
most  ridiculous  thing  from  our  point  of  view  to 
think  that  you  can  doubt  of  our  being  alive,  we 
who  have  infinitely  greater  powers  of  every  kind 
than  we  had  when  we  lived  on  your  tiny  star. 
Those  of  you  who  are  really  willing  to  carry  on, 
learn  to  receive  our  wTltten  message  as  the  writer 
of  this  book  has  learned.     It  is  not  a  thing  that 


72  The  One  Way 

only  one  person  can  do.  You  have  to  learn  how. 
*'When  you  get  here  you  will  find  that  your 
ignorance  of  the  fact,  that  certain  things  could 
or  should  have  been  done,  is  no  excuse,  provided 
you  could  have  learned  the  facts  if  you  had  tried. 
On  the  other  hand,  where  no  opportunity  of  learn- 
ing has  been  granted,  the  ignorance  is  a  complete 
excuse.  The  people  who  read  this  book  are  likely 
to  be  of  those  to  whom  opportunity  has  been 
given,  and  there  is  no  excuse  for  your  not  proving 
whether  or  no  the  thing  I  here  tell  you  is  or  is  not 
true.  On  earth  you  are  so  unnecessarily  ignorant 
because  you  won't  prove  the  things  by  living 
them." 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Present  Crisis  is  not  Confined 
TO  Earth 

*'^T^HE  whole  state  of  ferment  In  the  world  to- 
■*-  day  is  due  to  the  fact  that  man  has  not 
taken  the  proper  opportunities  for  progress. 
Have  you  never  experienced  In  your  own  life,  that 
if  a  thing  was  not  accomplished  at  the  right  time 
that  was  assigned  to  it,  you  never  had  another 
time  for  it  except  by  making  the  time.  It  might 
be  some  trifle  or  it  might  be  a  big  thing.  It  had 
its  proper  time  and  for  some  reason  you  failed  to 
do  It  at  its  proper  time — at  times  an  unavoidable 
interruption,  at  other  times  carelessness,  laziness 
or  sloth  prevented  the  doing  of  It.  It  may  be  that 
you  did  accomplish  it  later,  but  you  did  it  at 
greater  cost  of  energy  and  labor  and  you  had  to 
push  something  aside  In  order  to  accomplish  It. 
You  are  very  fond,  at  this  time,  of  the  use  of  the 
expression  'the  psychological  moment.'  I  have 
spoken  of  what  you  of  course  know  or  should 
know,  that  God  has  a  plan  for  the  whole  human 

73 


74  The  One  Way 

race.  He  did  not  create  the  universe  and  man  on 
a  haphazard.  But  the  perversion  of  the  royal 
prerogative  of  man,  his  free  will,  has  fearfully 
upset  and  delayed  the  working  out  of  God's  plan. 
Over  and  over  again  the  great  psychological 
moment  of  a  crisis  in  human  history  has  come  and 
gone  by,  without  advantage  being  taken  of  it, 
sometimes  deliberately  by  the  plan  of  evil  minded 
men,  either  in  the  flesh  or  out  of  it,  and  the  re- 
tarding of  the  whole  race  has  been  enormously 
greater  than  would  have  seemed  necessary,  if  one 
looked  at  that  one  incident  alone.  The  history 
of  man  is  clearly  a  progress  from  lower  to  higher. 
Everyone  of  you  knows  that.  The  evolution  that 
has  been  accomplished  is  far  greater  than  many 
of  you  realize  but  what  you  often  term  the  millen- 
nium is  much  nearer  If  you  take  advantage  of  the 
present  crisis  than  any  of  you  dream;  yet  you 
stand  in  fearful  jeopardy  of  missing  this  psycho- 
logical moment.  Politics  must  be  cleansed  of 
personal  motive.  Try  and  make  the  nations  real- 
ize that  greatness,  which  everyone  admires  and 
respects  in  individual  men,  can  be  reproduced  in 
national  character  just  as  well.  Nations  have  a 
character,  an  individuality,  just  as  much  as  single 
men.  A  great  man  with  tremendous  heart,  mind 
and  soul  has  his  work,  his  especial  capacities  and 


The  Present  Crisis  75 

duties,  and  If  he  is  truly  great  he  is  not  jealous  of 
some  other  great  man.  Rather  he  rejoices  in  him. 
Imagine  to  yourself  a  city  or  town,  where  Instead 
of  one  great  man  there  were  one  hundred  or  one 
thousand  men  of  towering  personality  and  ability 
— each  following  out  his  own  bent — or  even  two 
or  three  following  out  the  same  line;  if  they  were 
truly  great,  they  would  not  spend  their  time  in 
petty  jealousy,  they  would  be  too  much  absorbed 
in  the  advancement  of  the  great  cause  they  were 
following,  and  like  the  best  grade  of  sportsman 
would  cry.  Veil  done,  good  play,'  when  the  next 
man  excelled  them.  It  is  time  for  the  nations 
to  stop  bickering  and  self  seeking  and  above  all 
to  stop  fear, — fear  lest  the  next  man  shall  grab 
some  advantage  that  they  want  to  secure  for  them- 
selves. In  a  family  one  member  is  not  all  the 
time  trying  to  outwit  the  next;  rather  each,  though 
he  be  pursuing  his  own  interest,  has  a  due  regard 
to  and  care  for  his  brother,  even,  at  times,  caus- 
ing his  own  Interests  to  be  put  aside  and,  at  times, 
actually  injured  In  order  that  his  brothers  may  be 
served.  That  this  spirit  is  abroad  In  the  town, 
in  the  state.  In  the  country  and  dominated  all  the 
allied  nations  for  a  time,  is  so  well  known  that  it 
seems  laughable  for  me  to  be  writing  It  out,  but 
you,  who  rose  to  this  greatness  in  a  time  which 


76  The  One  Way 

you  recognized  to  be  an  overwhelming  crisis,  are 
slipping  back  into  your  old  ways  of  thinking  and 
acting. 

"What  I  touched  on  above,  in  regard  to  dogmas 
or  theological  subjects,  has  a  parallel  here.  Your 
legal  language  and  legal  codes  have  become  so 
complicated  that  it  is  no  wonder  that  you  are 
afraid  of  binding  yourselves  by  written  legal  docu- 
ments. All  lawyers  know  that  a  complete  and 
perfect  last  will  and  testament  can  be  drawn  up 
in  a  few  sentences  provided  they  are  simple 
enough.  A  league  of  nations  is  an  absolute  neces- 
sity, if  you  are  to  be  the  victors  in  the  present 
crisis.  Words  are  entangling.  Just  as  an  enorm- 
ous amount  of  evil  has  resulted  from  trying  to 
compress  the  unspeakable  eternal  verities  into  a 
few  words,  so,  to  try  to  provide  for  all  the  future 
by  a  document  that  lays  down  now  how  you  shall 
act  in  some  future  unforeseen  contingency,  is  un- 
wise. Yet,  you  must  have  a  league  of  nations. 
Perhaps  you  will  think  now  is  a  good  chance  for 
James  to  show  his  metal  and  write  us  a  docu- 
ment, that  is  at  once  simple  and  comprehensive. 
Of  course,  I  could  write  a  better  one  than  any 
living  man,  in  your  sense  of  that  word,  for  we  see 
values  of  things  past,  things  present  and  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  of  things  to  come ;  but  to  tell  you  how 


The  Present  Crisis  77 

you  should  do  what  It  is  your  place  to  work  out 
for  yourselves  would  be  deterrent.  St.  Paul  said: 
*Look  not  every  man  on  his  own  things  but  every 
man  also  on  the  things  of  others.'     Phil.  2  :  4." 

{Can  I  ask  a  question?) 

*Tes." 

{Suppose  a  person  here  had  succeeded  in  learn- 
ing the  thought  language  so  as  to  he  able  to  re- 
ceive  thoughts  consciously,  could  you  teach  him  in 
his  heart  how  to  write  such  a  document,  and  then 
he  write  it  down  of  himself?) 

"Why  there  you  are  beating  the  devil  around 
the  bush  as  the  old  saying  is.  Neither  I,  nor  any 
other  man  who  is  serving  God,  could  go  to  a  per- 
son on  earth  and  tell  them  in  their  hearts  what 
it  would  be  deterrent  to  tell  them  through  auto- 
matic writing.'' 

(/  know  that  God  himself  can  help  us  by  giving 
us  his  wisdom.    But  how  can  you  help  us?) 

'There  are  many  ways  that  we  can  help  you, 
many  things  that  would  not  be  deterrent  to  tell 
you,  but  it  is  very  subtle  and  I  do  not  think  I  had 
better  try  to  explain  to  you  now,  even  if  I  could 
succeed  in  making  you  understand,  of  which  I  do 
not  feel  at  all  sure. 

"That  was  a  digression — and  even  now,  much 
as  you  and  I  have  gained  in  working  together,  such 


78  The  One  Way 

a  digression  checks  the  ease  and  freedom  of  our 
work. 

*'WhIle  we  are  on  the  subject  of  the  inability 
of  human  language  to  express  meaning,  since  it  Is 
and  must  long  remain  the  chief  mode  of  communi- 
cation on  earth,  I  want  to  say  a  little  about  it. 
Empty  words  are  the  most  potent  of  all  means 
of  concealing  truth,  but  a  true  word  lived,  proved 
by  Life,  the  Life  that  is  of  God,  is  powerful  be- 
yond any  power  of  expression.  The  centurion 
said: 

"  *Say  in  a  word  and  my  servant  shall  be  healed, 
for  I  also  am  a  man  set  under  authority,  and  I 
say  to  one  come  and  he  cometh  .  .  .  and  to  my 
servant  do  this  and  he  doeth  it'  (Luke  7 :  7  and 
8.)  He  knew  a  great  truth,  the  word  of  truth 
spoken  in  earnest  by  a  righteous  man  Is  all  power- 
ful. I  have  told  you  again  and  again  that  you 
could  speak  the  word,  'I  absolutely  refuse  to  be  in- 
terfered with  by  deterrent  spirits' — and  it  is  a 
complete  protection,  but  remember  never  to  say 
those  words  over  as  a  charm,  for  then  all  their 
power  goes  from  them  and  they  become  empty 
idle  words.  Your  whole  self  must  stand  behind 
them  just  as  the  power  of  the  Roman  Empire 
stood  behind  the  centurion.  Read  the  first  chap- 
ter of  St.  John's  gospel,  learn  it  by  heart  and 


The  Present  Crisis  79 

repeat  it  to  yourself  a  thousand  times,  always  with 
prayer  that  God  will  give  you  the  grace  to  under- 
stand the  unsearchable  mystery  contained  therein. 
Don  t  be  afraid  of  that  old  Bible  word  'the  Grace 
of  God.'  You  know  It  means  power,  a  thing  you 
all  long  to  possess — and  use.  Why  dabble  with 
imitations?  Why  not  use  the  power  that  moves 
the  whole  universe? 

"And  by  the  way,  Mrs.  B ,  what  are  you 

doing  with  that  ice  on  your  leg;  is  not  God,  the 
source  of  all  health  and  healing,  a  better  healer 
than  Ice?" 

(Can  you  tell  me  what  word  to  speak?) 
"No,  of  course  I  won't  because  you  know,  and 
I  am  utterly  ashamed  of  you.    You  know  better." 
(/  have  tried  to  put  it  into  his   hands   com' 
pletely.) 

"Well  it  was  a  very  poor  grade  of  trying  and 
has  resulted  In  failure,  as  such  quality  of  trying 
always  will." 

{Don't  get  so  cross  and  spiteful  about  it.) 
"I  am  neither  cross  or  spiteful,  but  for  a 
woman  of  your  development  to  be  laid  up  by  a 
few  bumble  bees  Is  enough  to  make  me  feel  dis- 
couraged. If  Christ  opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind 
and  healed  all  m.anner  of  disease  and  you  know 


8o  The  One  Way 

he  did  It  too,  then  why  do  you  doubt  his  power 
of  completely  taking  away  the  inflammation  from 
a  few  bee  stings?  All  I  can  say  is  I  am  ashamed 
of  you." 

{Do  you  want  me  to  publish  that?) 

"I  want  you  to  do  what  is  right  and  to  do  it 
now  too."  ^ 

(Interval.) 

"I  am  sorry  I  seemed  unkind  but  you  know  you 
must  give  no  deterrent  spirit  any  opening." 

{It  has  been  a  real  source  of  difficulty  that  for 


'August  4th.    "J ,  what  is  the  matter?" 

{Today  my  foot  ached  very  much  because  I  <was  badly  stung 
by  bees,  and  I  put  ice  on  it.    Do  you  get  that?) 

"Yes." 

{Mr.  James  suddenly  upbraided  me  and  said  ivhat  nvas  I 
doing,  thinking  ice  could  help,  and  not  depending  solely  on  God, 
Do  you  get  that?) 

''Yes,  I  do." 

{Sometimes  people  can't  help  themselves  all  alone,  and  I  have 
tried  to  ask  God  to  help  me.  If  you  luere  here  it  <vjould  be  right 
for  you  to  help  me.) 

"J ,  I  am  helping  you  night  and  day.     Don't  you  realize 

that  the  strain  was  very  great  and  you  cannot  come  out  of  it 
in  a  minute?" 

{Why  did  Mr.  James  feel  so?) 

**I  don't  know;  I  think  he  knew  you  needed  stimulating.    Be 
honest,  didn't  it  help?" 
{Yes,  it  did.) 

"God  will  help  you  and  I  will  give  my  little  help  too." 


The  Present  Crisis  8i 

so  long  I  have  been  unable  to  feel  God's  nearness 
in  VI y  body.) 

"You  all  depend  far  too  much  on  feeling;  ask 
for  His  presence,  then  know  that  he  is  there,  and 
don't  feel  afraid  to  declare  It.  'Before  they  call 
I  will  answer;  while  they  are  yet  speaking  I  will 

hear.'      (Isaiah  65:24.)     Mrs.  B ,  you  must 

verify  that  quotation  for  you  controlled  the  pencil. 
I  think  you  have  worked  enough;  go  out  now, 
God  bless  you." 

Aug.  5  th,  1.30  P.M.  "You  are  not  yet  in  a  state 
where  you  can  expect  to  accomplish  good  work; 
go  lie  down  and  take  in  God's  strength.  Perhaps 
you'd  better  talk  to  your  husband  first  a  bit  before 
we  work." 

"J ,  Mr.  James  Is  right." 

(Later.) 

"That  Is  better,  you  were  simply  Impossible  be- 
fore. 

"•You  must  work  steadily  and  faithfully  along 
all  the  lines  of  advancement  now  laid  down.  In 
philanthropy,  In  all  Its  branches,  you  must  try  to 
get  rid  of  the  red  tape  and  get  a  spirit  of  love  into 
the  work." 

(/  think  we  know  that  as  a  desideratum.  Give. 
us  some  very  practical  instruction  as  to  how  to 
deal  with  the  very  good  devoted  class  of  workers 


82  The  One  Way 

whose  point  of  view  is  old-fashioned,  who  are 
hidebound  by  precendent,  and  who  are  obstinate, 
yet  willing  to  give  of  themselves,  their  time,  and 
their  money  according  to  their  lights.) 

''Why  suppose  you  are  In  a  committee  meeting 
and  you  wish  to  put  In  a  wider  vision,  a  greater 
understanding  of  the  present  need  or  outlook  of 
the  work  you  are  dealing  with  and  you  are  blocked 
by  some  good,  worthy,  devoted  but  blind  person 
— that  Is  what  they  are  If  their  eyes  are  holden 
and  they  cannot  get  the  needed  vision.  Pray  for 
them,  say  silently  'William  Smith,  I  command  you 
to  open  your  eyes  and  see  with  the  eyes  of  Christ' 
— or  'William  Smith,  I  command  you  to  see  as 
God  sees' — or  'Mary  Jones,  let  the  Christ  nature 
in  you,  come  out  and  see  with  the  eyes  of  God.' 
But  observe  that  you  are  not  to  say,  'Mary  Jones, 
Let  the  Christ  nature  in  you  come  out  and  see  this 
matter  as  I  see  it,'  because  you  too  may  be  mis- 
taken. When  you  are  commanding  Mary  Jones, 
look  out  for  the  beam  in  your  own  eye.  Say 
'Mary  Jones,  I  command  you  to  let  the  Christ 
nature  in  you  come  out  and  let  us  both  ask  God 
to  let  us  see  with  his  eyes.'  You  must  get  entirely 
and  completely  done  with  the  spirit  of  forcing 
your  neighbor  to  see  the  truth  as  you  see  It — let 
him  get  It  from  his  angle  and  keep  yourself  fluids 


The  Present  Crisis  83 

That  doesn't  mean  you  are  to  be  carried  about 
by  every  wind  of  doctrine;  not  at  all.  It  means, 
don't  be  so  set  In  your  own  opinion  as  to  what  Is 
truth,  that  you  can't  hear  God  speak  and  direct 
your  heart  and  mind  to  new  aspects  of  his  infinite 
truth.  If  Mary  Jones  has  gone  to  the  meeting 
in  a  fluid  state  of  mind  she  will  both  hear  you  and 
obey.  If  she  has  gone  down  on  her  knees  before 
she  went  to  the  meeting  and  said,  *0h  Father  this 
is  thy  work — I  am  thy  child — pour  thy  grace  Into 
my  heart — show  me  what  you  want  done  and  give 
me  the  strength  and  power  to  do  it — give  me  ears 
attentive  to  your  voice  and  a  will  wholly  set  to 
carry  out  your  commands,'  you  will  have  no 
trouble  when  you  call  upon  her  to  let  the  Christ 
nature  come  out.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  she  has 
gone  there  set  as  adamant  to  carry  the  whole 
thing  her  way,  you  will  need  a  double  measure  of 
God's  spirit  to  move  her;  but  remember  that  in 
such  a  case  yoii  do  not  have  to  move  her;  you 
should  be  so  open  to  God's  power  that,  like  the 
great  water  main,  a  flood  Is  flowing  through  you. 
Keep  It  extremely  clear  in  your  mind  that  you  are 
the  conduit,  not  the  water.  It  is  God  who  must 
deal  with  the  adamant,  set,  self  willed  Mary 
Jones,  but  he  does  need  you  as  the  water  pipe.  Of 
course  if  he   had  chosen  to  make  man   after  a 


84  The  One  Way 

wholly  different  plan  he  could  have  dispensed  with 
the  conduit,  but  he,  being  absolute  perfection,  does 
only  the  perfect  way  and  he  made  man  to  be  his 
companion,  his  fellow  worker,  to  cooperate  with 
him,  and  his  perfect  way  for  its  perfect  consum- 
mation must  have  man's  cooperation. 

**Now  in  case  any  of  you  are  ever  like  Mary 
Jones,  adamant  to  force  your  own  will  upon  others, 
let  me  here  point  out  to  you  that  even  though 
your  whole  time  and  strength  may  be  given  to 
good  works,  if  you  do  them  in  that  spirit,  you  may 
easily,  nay  you  most  probably  will,  become  de- 
terrent. Now  then,  I  think  you  can  see  how  it  is 
that  we  can  help  you  If  you  let  us  consciously,  and 
how  very  hard  It  is  for  us  to  help  if  you  refuse 
to  let  us  In.  I  have  tried  to  show  you  that  vague- 
ness and  indecision  are  deterrent  states  of  mind, 
so  to  be  vague  about  letting  us  help  you  or  not, 
or  thinking  you  will  wait  until  after  you  are  dead 
before  you  try  to  understand  the  mysteries  of  the 
eternal  verities  of  God,  is  deterrent.  I  can  tell 
you  right  now  that  it  will  take  you  all  eternity 
to  wholly  understand  the  eternal  verities  of  God, 
but  your  understanding  will  be  horribly  delayed 
if  you  haven't  tried  up  to  the  limit  of  the  oppor- 
tunities which  have  been  presented  to  you  in  your 
earthly  career.  Integrity  of  Intention  followed  by 


The  Present  Crisis  85 

sincerity  of  action  are  essential  characteristics  of 
heavenly  mindedness. 

*The  ways  in  which  we  can  help  you  are  beyond 
what  it  is  possible  for  me  to  tell  you  now,  but  you 
hold  the  master  key.  You  can  keep  out  deterrent 
spirits  as  I  have  told  you.  You  can  keep  us  out 
by  yourselves  being  deterrent  and  serving  mixed 
motives.  'Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon/ 
Also  for  us,  you  who  are  on  earth  and  us  here, 
to  unite  and  work  effectively  for  the  bringing  in 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth,  you  have  got 
to  become  open  and  clearly  recognize  us  and  our 
messages,  both  written  and  mental,  and  cooperate 
with  us.  During  the  war  you  laid  aside  differ- 
ences and  worked  in  the  most  remarkable  harmony 
for  a  great  end,  and  because  you  recognized  a 
great  danger.  We  want  to  help  you  to  recognize 
a  far  greater  peril  and  to  help  you  to  unite  more 
and  more  completely. 

*'It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  cultivate 
the  habit  of  emphasizing  the  points  of  agreement 
with  your  neighbors,  rather  than  the  points  of  dif- 
ferences, not  to  weaken  either  your  position  or 
his,  but  to  try  to  eliminate  the  sense  of  friction 
which  has  unfortunately  become  so  widespread.'* 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Need  of  the  World  To-day  is  the  Love 
OF  God  and  Religion 

*'TT  rHILE  we  are  looking  at  the  whole  ques- 
^^  tlon  of  how  to  meet  this  crisis,  we  must 
face  the  fact  that  alone  we  shall  surely  fail,  but 
God  and  one  man  are  a  host.  God  alone  is  om- 
nipotent but  he  chooses  to  have  the  one  man  to  use 
as  his  instrument — by  his  own  choice  he  is  unable 
to  accomplish  the  work  without  his  instrument. 
No  philosophy,  no  man,  no  book,  no  experience  is 
truly  valuable  unless  it  lead  you  back  to  the  one 
Source.  In  your  political,  your  religious,  your 
philanthropic,  your  social,  finally  and  most  of  all 
in  your  personal  life,  get  back  to  the  One  Source, 
the  Almighty  Father,  the  God  who  is  love.  If  you 
are  going  to  serve  him  you  must  learn  to  love 
more.  Your  daily  task  may  be  drudgery  to  you, 
you  may  long  to  get  away  and  be  free  of  it,  and 
be  employed  where  the  talents  you  feel  you  possess 
can  develop  and  shine — the  remedy  is  to  do  the 
work  you  dislike,  or  even  hate,  for  love.     Seek 

86 


Need  of  the  World  To-day        87 

God  in  It.  Say,  'Father  this  is  work  I  hate,  If  you 
are  In  It  show  me  where  you  are — teach  me  how 
to  do  It  for  you  and  for  you  alone.'  If  the  next 
time  you  think  of  It  you  still  hate  It  and  you  are 
honest  In  wishing  to  learn  to  like  it  and  to  do  It 
as  a  service  to  God — put  it  right  up  to  him.  *Now 
Father,  I  asked  you  to  make  me  like  It,  to  show 
me  yourself  In  It;  where  are  you?'  Don't  let  God 
alone — badger  him  till  he  shows  you  himself. 
'One  thing  have  I  desired  of  the  Lord  which  I 
will  require'  (Psalm  27:4,  prayerbook  version^) 
— but  remember  you  must  be  honest.  You  may 
think  it  not  worth  while,  but  do  show  a  little  com- 
mon sense;  If  you  have  got  to  do  your  work  to 
earn  your  bread  you  might  as  well  enjoy  It  as 
hate  It,  while  you  are  doing  It,  even  if  that  were 
all,  but  it's  not  all.  You  are  all  Immortal  souls, 
very  temporarily  inhabiting  bodies,  and  the  things 
you  have  failed  to  learn  there,  you  will  have  to 
learn  here.  But  remember,  if  through  careless- 
ness or  wilful  neglect,  you  fail  to  learn  in  your 
earth  life  that  which  belongs  to  that  part  of  your 


'^  It  should  be  remembered  that  when  I  was  working  freely  I 
often  received  a  whole  thought  at  once — which  thought  I  should 
naturally  have  expressed  in  the  form  most  familiar  to  myself. 
It  seems  improbable  that  Dr.  James  would  have  used  this  version 
if  he  had  dictated  it  word  bv  word. 


88  The  One  Way 

life,  it  will  be  enormously  more  difficult  to  make 
it  up  here  than  to  have  learned  it  at  first.     You 
have  to  fulfill  your  own  destiny  and  though  it  may 
take  you  an  eternity  to  accomplish  it,  yet  you  will 
fulfill  it.     The  Protestant  world,  having  been  dis- 
gusted by  a  fearful  abuse  of  the  doctrine  of  pur- 
gatory, has  imagined,  taking  for  their  authority 
isolated  verses  from  the  Bible,  that  your  life  on 
earth  comxprised  all  your  capacity  for  growth,  that 
what  you  are  at  death  is  all  you  can  ever  attain 
to,  that  there  is  no  further  chance.     God  is  love 
and  justice   is  a  department  or  attribute   of  his 
love.     That  mental  attitude  referred  to  above  is 
too  silly  to  make  it  worth  my  while  to  spend  any 
time  refuting  or  discussing  it.    If  purgatory  means 
purging  you'll  get  it  all  right.     You  have  your 
work  to  do,  no  matter  in  what  department  of  life 
it  lies,  and  the  work  of  each  man  is  honorable  if 
he  chooses  to  make  it  so.     If  you  can  only  get  it 
firmly  fixed  in  your  hearts  and  minds  that  every 
man  is  an  immortal  son  of  God — every  single  one 
of  them  essential  to  God — the  poor  man  and  the 
rich  man,  the  ignorant  and  the  educated,  the  lowly 
endowed  and  the  highly  gifted,  each  one  will  begin 
to  regard  the  other  differently.     You  say  we  have 
been  told  all  this  for  centuries  but  it  doesn't  hold 
water;  it  has  been  tried  out,  yes  by  individuals, 


Need  of  the  World  To-day        89 

but  not  by  whole  nations.  There  Is  not  a  Chris- 
tian nation  upon  the  earth;  more  shame  to  human- 
ity! There  are  some  nations  where  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  the  men  and  women  are  truly  Chris- 
tians than  in  other  nations,  but  it  remains  yet  for 
you  to  make  even  one  town  of  one  thousand  in- 
habitants where  every  man  is  In  love  with  God. 
Now  that  is  what  your  task  is;  to  so  train  and 
teach  every  man,  woman  and  child  that  they  shall 
truly  love  God  and  their  fellow  men.  You  must 
begin  to  practise  love  everywhere  and  at  all  times. 
You  see  a  little  crying  child  with  an  ignorant  cross 
mother  twitching  or  slapping  It  and  only  making 
it  naughtier.  If  you  speak  in  your  heart  clearly, 
insistently,  lovingly  the  words,  'Let  the  Christ 
nature  in  you  come  out'  you  will  attain  simply  un- 
believable results.  Speak  to  the  soul  of  the 
woman  and  the  soul  of  the  child;  behind  their 
ignorance,  their  vice,  their  forelgnness,  their  dirt, 
lies  the  kernel  of  their  being,  the  place  where  al- 
ways a  litde  atom  of  God  their  Father  dwells. 
Water  the  seed,  dig  about  it.  My  metaphor  is 
inadequate,  poor,  but  see  my  meaning  behind  the 
words  and  begin  to  live  It  and  your  knowledge  will 
soon  grow  so  that  it  will  outstrip  all  that  I  have 
attempted  to  tell  you.  What  Anglo-Saxon  Is  there 
among  you  who  does  not  feel  contempt  for  the 


90  The  One  Way 

Oriental  caste  system,  but  what  about  the  beam 
in  your  own  eye?  Right  here  I  would  say,  that 
the  present  feeling  of  the  plainer  poorer  people 
against  the  rich  is  responsible  for  a  tremendous 
proportion  of  the  misunderstanding  and  class  pre- 
judice existing  today.  In  the  past  the  sins  of  the 
ruling  class  against  those  below  them  created  that 
attitude,  therefore  the  more  privileged  people  will 
have  to  do  much  more  than  half  the  work  of  doing 
away  with  that  feeling,  but  you  will  have  to  teach 
and  work  along  those  lines  as  never  before  in  the 
history  of  man. 

"There  is  no  department  of  your  present  life 
where  you  do  not  need  to  do  missionary  work. 
The  spirit  that  goes  out  to  correct  the  mistakes 
and  wrongdoings  of  others  is  not  a  force  for 
progress.  The  spirit  which  lays  aside  all  personal 
aggrandisement  and  advancement  and  goes  out 
to  carry  a  great  gift  is  wholly  different.  You  are 
to  go  out  into  all  departments  of  the  life  of  man, 
to  carry  the  knowledge  of  the  love  of  God  and 
of  the  absolute  freedom  wherewith  Christ  has 
made  you  free." 

{How  do  you  know  if  the  message  you  are  giv- 
ing me  has  gotten  through?  You  can^t  read  the 
words  on  the  paper.) 

"No,  I  can't  read  the  words  on  the  paper,  but 


Need  of  the  World  To-day       91 

I  can  read  the  ideas  in  your  head  and  heart  as 
clear  as  in  a  mirror.  I  know  that  it  has  gone 
through/ 

"The  one  thing  man  needs  today  is  the  love  of 
God,  the  knowledge  of  the  reality  and  truth  of 
religion.  It  will  cleanse  all  departments  of  life. 
It  will  bring  order  out  of  chaos.  Remember  the 
Bolshevists  have  very  able  evil  leaders,  both  in 
and  out  of  the  flesh,  and  those  that  are  out  of  the 
flesh  are  absolutely  united  for  the  downfall  of  the 
whole  human  race,  as  they  hope.  It  can  never 
be;  'the  Lord  reigns  be  the  earth  never  so  un- 
quiet'; but  the  setback,  the  unutterable  and  com- 
pletely unnecessary  suffering,  if  they  should  be 
temporarily  successful,  is  impossible  to  contem- 
plate. You  must  wake  mankind  with  a  clarion 
cry  everywhere.  Among  you  are  many  men  and 
women  who  are  powerful  forces  for  progress,  for 
God,  but  who,  because  of  some  intellectual  quib- 
bles, doubts  or  the  mistaken  emphasis  that  has 
been  put  on  theology,  are  standing  outside  organ- 
ized religion.  Theology  is  man's  work;  it  had 
its  work  to  do,  but  don't  put  new  wine  in  old  bot- 
tles; forge  ahead;  see  things  in  the  large;  don't 

^  If  this  is  the  method  by  which  the  book  is  dictated,  is  it  not 
clear  that  the  language  and  the  style  might  difiFer  widely  from 
W.  J.'s  other  writings? 


92  The  One  Way 

squabble  nor  stop  over  little  differences;  let  the 
next  man  do  his  way,  don't  try  to  force  him  into 
yours.  If  you  have  something  to  give  him,  bring 
him  in  by  love,  not  by  force. 

"There  are  enormous  numbers  of  people  who 
would  resent  distinct  interference  from  other  per- 
sons on  earth,  who  yet  permit  constant  Interfer- 
ence from  disembodied  spirits,  and  since  it  is  the 
fact,  you  might  just  as  well  know  It;  but  thoughts 
or  tendencies  that  you  credit  to  your  human  flesh 
would  seem  very  different  to  you  If  they  came  from 
without.  You  might  be  willing  to  eat  glutton- 
ously, if  you  felt  it  was  only  your  own  flesh  that 
you  were  satisfying,  but  if  you  knew  It  was  a 
definite  interference  of  an  evil  disembodied  spirit 
you  might  not  choose  to  have  them  rule  you.  If 
the  man  next  door  came  and  proposed  a  scheme, 
whereby  you  and  he  could  enrich  yourselves  at 
the  expense  of  your  other  neighbors,  you  would 
perhaps  feel  ready  to  kick  him  out  of  the  door, 
and  yet  if  some  disembodied  neighbor  makes  such 
a  suggestion,  far  more  subtly  than  the  first  one, 
you  very  likely  entertain  the  thought — consider  it 
— reject  it — think  It  over  again — accept  the  idea 
suggested  to  you  of  the  benefit  your  scheme  will 
bestow  In  Improved  convenience  to  the  neighbor- 
hood.    In  the  end,  because  of  the  habitual  lack  of 


Need  of  the  World  To-day       93 

clearness,  of  straight  thinking,  of  singleness  of 
heart,  of  which  so  much  has  been  said,  you  may 
enter  into  and  carry  out  a  scheme  utterly  unworthy 
of  your  best  self  because  you  didn't  see  straight 
in  the  beginning  and  because  you  had  no  idea  that 
a  definite  personality  was  presenting  the  idea.  If 
you  could  once  learn  the  fact  that  the  thought 
language  lies  behind  the  babel  tongues  of  the 
human  race,  and  that  all  men  can  understand  the 
thought  language,  you  would  begin  to  open  your 
eyes  to  a  great  class  of  facts,  to  which  you  are 
now  blinded.  Many  a  man  who  would  resent  a 
Bolshevik's  suggestion,  if  he  came  to  him  openly, 
is  entangled  by  the  mixed  motives  suggested  to 
him  by  a  man  whom  he  had  supposed  to  be  hon- 
orable and  upright.  If  a  living  man  can  do  this 
to  you,  I  tell  you  that  with  the  increased  power 
of  intellect  of  the  disembodied  Bolsheviki — call 
them  devils  straight  out,  and  you  won't  be  far 
wrong — your  danger  is  fearful  to  contemplate. 
The  remedy  is  clear,  simplify  your  actions,  your 
thinking,  all  your  standards.  *How,'  you  say,  'is 
it  to  be  done?'  I  answer  very  simply;  all  you 
need  Is  to  get  the  eternal  point  of  view.  How  is 
this  thought  or  action  going  to  check  up  in  eternity 
— will  It  be  entered  on  the  debit  or  the  credit 
side?     Idol  worship  is  not  cut  out  from  the  so- 


94  The  One  Way 

called  Christian  nations.  Men  and  women  who 
would  look  with  horror  on  a  heathen  whom  they 
saw  praying  to  an  image  of  wood  or  stone,  them- 
selves worship  the  God  of  power,  social  or  po- 
litical, the  God  of  gold,  the  God  of  material 
achievement  and  success,  the  God  of  influence  or 
leadership,  making  their  chosen  God  the  end  of 
all  their  effort  Behind  the  Idea  which  has  be- 
come a  matter  of  worship  to  you,  lies  just  that 
modicum  of  truth  which  has  served  to  blind  you. 
Social  and  political  power  are  fine  things  if  used 
to  further  the  plan  of  God  Almighty.  Gold  can 
do  untold  good,  if  used  for  God's  glory  and  the 
service  of  mankind  rather  than  for  the  aggrand- 
isement of  the  possessor.  Material  achievement 
and  success  is  an  absolute  necessity  if  man  is  to 
work  out  his  own  destiny  which  Is  God's  plan;  but 
you  must  have  the  one  eternal  point  of  view  for- 
ever behind  your  whole  life  and  thought,  a  back- 
ground that  gives  meaning  and  the  correct  value 
to  the  entire  picture.  God  having  created  each 
one  of  you  an  essential  unit  in  his  scheme,  you 
naturally  want  to  find  your  place  and  fulfill  your 
own  destiny.  Effort,  a  fair  competition  such  as 
we  see  in  the  highest,  cleanest  kind  of  athletics,  is 
as  natural  to  your  human  experience  on  earth  as 
breathing.     In  the  best  athletics  you  penalize  the 


Need  of  the  World  To-day       95 

man  who  descends  to  a  dirty  trick  to  accomplish 
his  end.  Get  that  spirit  into  all  your  life,  busi- 
ness, politics,  religion.  The  self-made  man  could 
never  have  made  himself  if  making  himself  had 
not  been  the  background  of  his  whole  life  and 
thought;  just  so  we  want  you  to  realize  that  your 
whole  human  life  is  either  a  preparation  for  an 
infinitely  fuller,  more  satisfying  life,  or  an  experi- 
:ence  of  remorse  that  is  indescribable  suffering." 

I  have  spoken  very  clearly  of  the  fact  that  you 
already  have  all  the  revelation  that  is  necessary 
to  your  whole  salvation,  but  many  men  are  so 
mixed  that  our  God,  who  is  love,  is  ready  to  give 
you  another  help  on  the  way.  Automatic  writing 
is  as  old  as  the  earliest  of  Inspired  writers, 
whether  they  are  poets  or  moralists,  for  under 
inspired  writing  Is  much  that  is  not  sacred;  but  at 
this  time  God  Is  permitting  man  to  recognize  just 
what  automatic  writing  Is  and  how  to  use  It.  God 
loves  you  and  longs  to  draw  you  to  his  heart — at 
the  same  time  that  he  will  never  force  you — and 
because  of  the  greatness  of  the  crisis  that  lies 
ahead  he  is  permitting  certain  leaders  to  use  this 
means  of  convincing  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
the  reality  of  the  life  beyond  your  tiny  star.  The 
minute  a  man  becomes  absolutely  convinced  of 
eternal  life  and  gets  the  adjustment  of  his  point 


96  The  One  Way 

of  view  that  enables  him  to  see  that  life  on  eartH 
IS  a  preparation  for  that  eternity,  all  his  values 
change  and  fall  each  into  its  own  place.  It  is  of 
utmost  importance  that  he  should  realize  that 
eternal  life  is  ruled  by  love,  that  justice  is  a  part 
of  love,  and  that  the  man  who  wilfully  refuses  to 
seek  the  light  on  earth,  which  it  is  his  duty  to  seek 
there,  must  take  the  consequences.  Note  that  I 
say  wilfully  refuses.  Those  to  whom  opportunity 
has  been  denied  will  have  Divine  justice  directed 
by  Divine  love. 

"You  will  see  that  it  is  not  merely  Bolshevism, 
directed  by  men  on  earth,  that  you  have  to  fight 
— for  'ye  fight  against  principalities,  against 
powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this 
world,'  and  you  fight  with  your  arms  tied  so  long 
as  you  have  divided  motives  in  yourselves.  If  it 
were  only  possible  to  convince  you  of  the  unutter- 
able importance  of  this  crisis — to  gain  your  undi- 
vided allegiance  to  this  cause,  we  could  give  you 
such  a  tremendous  amount  of  assistance.  Picture 
a  loving  father  who  has  told  his  small  son  to  do 
a  certain  thing  and  told  him  that  unless  he  obeys, 
a  given  punishment  will  follow.  The  father 
knows  that  the  child  does  not  appreciate  in  the 
least  the  bitterness  of  the  consequences  of  disobe- 
dience and  longs  to  help  his  boy  to  obey — but 


Need  of  the  World  To-day        97 

since  It  would  not  be  obedience  if  he  forced  him, 
he  can  only  sit  silently  by  and  try  to  draw  him  by 
his   love — fatherly   love,    intelligent,    tender    and 
yearning  against  obstinacy,  self  will  and  Ignorance. 
Imagine  that  same  human  father,  separated  from 
his  son  by  the  transition  you  call  death  with  In- 
finitely Increased  Intelligence  and  power  to  love. 
Can  you  imagine  the  Intensity  of  his  yearning  love, 
eager  to  save  his  son — no  it  is  beyond  your  powers 
— yet  I  have  only  been  describing  the  love  of  a 
human  parent.     Therefore  I  Implore  you  to  lay 
aside  your  doubts  and  prove  the  truth  of  these 
things  I  have  been  trying  to  get  across  to  you. 
Experience   is   the  most   convincing   of  teachers. 
Those   persons  who  have   experienced  conscious 
automatic  writing  are  convinced — learn  of  them. 
The   conscious   Interchange   of   thought   between 
those  In  your  realm  and  those  in  our  realms  wuU 
be  convincing  In  a  degree  you  cannot  dream  of, 
Beware  of  receiving  thoughts  either  conscious  or 
unconscious  from  deterrent  spirits." 


CHAPTER  VII 

Of  Union  with  God  the  One  Source  of 
All  Power 

TN  conclusion,  the  end,  the  beginning,  all  the 
ways  and  means,  are  One.  There  Is  Only 
One  source,  One  ending.  One  way  of  achievement. 
All  is  God.  God  is  love  Love  Is  wise,  love  is 
just,  love  is  patient,  love  is  untiring,  love  is  ever 
ready,  love  is  law,  love  Is  the  greatest  force  in  all 
the  universe,  the  dynamic  that  can  accomplish  all 
things.  I  have  just  said  that  love  Is  law.  Now 
perhaps  the  reason  for  the  most  fearful  failures 
of  the  present  civilization  of  the  human  race,  Is 
that  with  you  law  is  not  love,  for  it  Is  one  of  those 
things  that  should  work  both  ways.  Love  Is  law, 
and  law  should  be  love  The  present  laws  of 
man  in  the  most  civilized  countries  are  made  with 
the  purpose  of  attaining  the  greatest  justice  for 
the  greatest  number,  but  justice  being  only  a  part 
of  Divine  love,  justice  alone  is  not  enough.  God^s 
love  is  also  law,  and  to  make  law  only  justice  is 
to  restrict  law  in  a  way  that  It  should  not  be 

98 


Union  with  God  99 

restricted.     Another  part  of  justice  is  retribution 
or  punishment.     Now  there  is  nothing  that  is  so 
utterly  misunderstood  by  men   today   as   punish- 
ment.  The  only  object  of  punishment  is  to  make 
the  offender  do  better,  and  all  vengeance  should 
be  cut  out.     The   idea  that  God  is  vengeful  is 
utterly  false.     It  is  one  of  those  points  where  man 
has  constructed  a  God  out  of  his  imagination  and 
then  taught  his  neighbors  that  God  the  Father, 
the  Creator  of  the  universe,  the  God  who  is  love, 
is  vengeful.    It  is  utterly  and  entirely  incompatible 
that  Perfect  Love  should  be  vengeful.     God  is 
just.     He  is  a  God  of  law  and  He  created  his 
universe  with  perfect  laws  which,  if  they  had  been 
kept,  would  have  produced  an  unbroken  harmony 
and  progress.     One  of  His  fundamental  laws  is 
that  of  cause  and  effect.     Let  man  break  God's 
laws,  and  just  In  proportion  to  the  way  that  they 
are   broken,    will   be   the   consequence    or    effect. 
This  is  the  absolutely  simple  explanation  of  the 
existence  of  evil,  of  sin,  disease  and  death.     The 
caterpillar  does  not  die  when  he  goes   Into  his 
chrysalis.     Neither  did  God  originally  make  man 
to  pass  through   such  a    distressing   and  violent 
change  as  death,  in  many  Instances,  has  become. 
Man  should  fall  peacefully  asleep  and  presently 
pass  Into  eternal  life,  having  recognized  before- 


100  The  One  Way 

hand  that  the  end  of  his  life  on  earth  was  coming 
soon  and  made  his  plans  in  an  orderly  manner. 
Every  naturalist  knows  that  the  creature  which 
changes  from  one   form  of  life  on  your  earth, 
visibly  before  your  eyes,  slows  down  its  activities, 
as  it  were,  appears  to  be  heavy  and  preparing  for 
a  change,  before  it  passes  Into  the  intermediate 
stage.     There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
dragonfly  grub  feels  any  sickness  or  pain  when  he 
crawls    from    the    bottom    of   the    pond.      That 
process  for  him  is  as  natural  a  part  of  existence 
as    breathing,    seeking    his    food,    or    swimming. 
Even   so    it    should  be   for  man   as    simple    and( 
natural   a   part  of  existence   to  pass   from  your 
sphere    to    ours    as    for   him    to    pass    from    his 
mother's  body  into  earthly  life.     The  most  fond 
and  loving  parent  that  ever  existed,  does  not  wish 
his   child  to   remain  unborn  because   the   actual 
process  of  birth  is  attended  with  difficulty.     Of 
course  in  an  ideal  state,  it  should  not  be  attended 
with  pain ;  effort  and  travail  but  not  pain.    Neither 
with  man  nor  with  beast  should  there  be  pain,  if 
you  all  knew  how  to  take  in  God's  power  as  you 
should  know  how,  and  that  is  one  of  the  things 
that  you  must  study  and  learn.     There  is  no  need 
of  physical  pain.     That  is  a  very  different  state- 
ment from  the  one  that  is  the  source  of  so  much 


Union  with  God  lOl 

controversy,  namely,  'There  Is  no  pain.'  Of 
travail,  in  the  sense  of  extreme  effort,  yes,  but 
who  minds  extreme  effort  for  a  desired  end. 

"God  being  love,  cannot  have  In  Himself  any 
quality  that  is  contrary  to  love.  Vengeance  is  not 
a  part  of  love  and  never  could  be  All  punish- 
ment should  be  an  act  of  tender  love  and  justice 
toward  the  offender.  Such  is  the  unhindered  pun- 
ishment of  God.  By  that  I  mean  such  punishment 
as  is  meted  out  after  the  change  you  call  death. 
While  you  live  on  earth  you  are  free  to  do  your 
own  will.  After  you  leave  the  earth  your  free 
will  ceases  In  just  this  sense.  If  you  have  been 
deterrent  and  choose  to  remain  so,  you  are  de- 
terrent and  only  deterrent  until  such  time  as  you 
choose  to  turn  and  seek  God  and  Him  alone,  but 
if  you  chose  to  serve  God  and  Him  alone  before 
you  left  the  earth  (or  such  of  you  as  may  make 
that  choice  here),  you  no  longer  do  anything  but 
the  will  of  God.  Thy  will  be  done  upon  earth  as 
It  Is  done  in  heaven.  How  Is  it  done  In  heaven? 
With  abounding  joy,  with  absolute  allegiance, 
with  haste  and  fidelity.  In  the  life  of  the  blessed 
after  death — I  cannot  once  let  that  expression 
pass,  it  must  each  time  be  Vhat  you  call  death' 
— there  Is  no  divided  purpose,  there  Is  no  mixture 
of  motives.     You  have  to  be  either  wholly  good 


102  The  One  Way 

or  wholly  deterrent.  A  spirit  who  after  coming 
to  this  sphere  definitely  chooses  to  be  deterrent  is 
capable  of  repentance,  but  it  comes  only  through 
a  suffering  that  is  indescribable,  unless  the  choice 
is  made  at  once  at  the  time  of  passing.  You  have 
heard  often  of  deathbed  repentances.  That  is 
nothing  uncommon.  That  is  to  say,  at  the  time 
of  passing  every  soul  has  a  renewed  chance  of 
choice.  If  at  that  time  a  man  chooses  to  remain 
deterrent,  the  road  back  to  God  must  be  through 
great  agony  of  remorse.  What  is  known  to  you 
as  a  deathbed  repentance  is,  thank  God,  very  com- 
mon, only  you  see  it  but  rarely  because  it  generally 
happens  this  side  of  the  veil.  Let  no  man  think 
that  a  deathbed  repentance,  or  one  on  this  side 
of  the  veil,  is  a  simple  and  easy  method  of  squar- 
ing up  accounts;  that  you  can  live  a  bad  life  and 
then  repent  at  the  end.  What  you  call  a  deathbed 
repentance  is  always  the  direct  consequence  of 
former  things.  That  is,  suppose  a  man  whose 
external  visible  life  has  been  vicious  and  bad,  re- 
pents at  death.  The  true  explanation  of  that  is 
always  that  he  never  before  had  a  chance  of  seeing 
things  in  their  true  values.  Either  environment 
or  inheritance  blinded  him,  and  suddenly,  just  at 
the  time  of  passing,  he  sees  everything  in  its  true 
value  and  gets  his  chance  to  choose.     You  will 


Union  with  God  103 

very  likely  think  that  you  can  cite  cases  that  c'ould 
not  possibly  come  under  this  law,  but  that  is  be- 
cause you  judge  with  the  judgment  of  men  who 
look  on  the  outside,  not  with  the  judgment  of  the 
Almighty  Father  who  sees  the  whole.  When 
every  man  sees  the  whole  In  its  true  value,  he  is 
capable  of  judging  himself.  He  knows  whether 
he  Is  to  be  condemned  or  not.  For  that  moment, 
he  becomes  as  God  to  judge  himself.  He  sees 
all  things  that  appertain  to  his  own  life  In  true 
value  and  true  proportion  to  each  other,  and  there 
is  given  to  him  the  capacity  to  judge  himself. 
This  Is  true  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  our  Lord 
says,  'AH  judgment  is  committed  unto  Me.*  Even 
unto  us  here  this  Is  a  mystery,  but  I  think  It  Is 
like  this.  The  Christ  nature  In  every  child  of  man 
asserts  itself  at  that  time,  and  for  the  moment, 
the  man  judging  himself  Is  not  himself  alone  but 
God  dwelleth  in  him.  This  Is  so  very  difficult  to 
express  in  human  language  that  I  must  beg  you 
to  try  and  read  it,  not  in  the  spirit  of  saying,  *I 
don't  believe  that,'  or  'How  dare  he  assert  that,' 
but  rather  In  the  spirit  of,  *Let  me  see  If  I  can  see 
any  explanation  of  what  he  means  behind  the  veil 
of  his  words.' 

"Man  is  an  Integral  part  of  God.    The  life  that 
is  In  you  is  God  life.     There  Is  only  one  source 


104  The  One  Way 

of  Life,  God.  Therefore  say  that  the  life  that 
is  in  you  is  God  life,  or  Himself.  The  love  that 
is  in  you,  to  whatever  degree  it  is  developed,  is 
God  love.  God  is  love.  All  love  is  of  Him  and 
is  Him.  You  cannot  love  your  mother,  your  wife, 
your  child,  your  home,  the  beauties  of  nature  or 
any  other  thing  except  the  love  of  God  be  in  you 
to  some  degree.  All  true  loving,  no  matter  how 
unworthy  the  object,  is  a  little  bit  of  God  dwelling 
In  you.  God  is  wisdom.  Therefore,  all  true  wis- 
dom is  God's  wisdom,  and  you  cannot  apprehend 
Truth,  that  which  is  Truth,  without  the  wisdom 
of  God  being  in  you.  Nothing  can  live  anywhere 
In  the  universe  apart  from  the  life  of  God.  By  liv- 
ing, you  are  in  contact  with,  and  in  a  sense  a  part 
of.  Him.  Yet  He  chose  to  create  man  an  indi- 
vidual, and  the  individuality  of  man  is  sacred. 
You  will  never  lose  your  individuality.  You  are 
a  part  of  God  the  Father,  and  you  can  never  reach 
the  development  which  he  designed  for  you,  until 
you  recognize  this  with  your  heart,  your  mind  and 
your  spirit,  and  translate  it  into  life  by  living  it. 

*'The  Buddhist  doctrine  of  Nirvana  or  nothing- 
ness is  a  perversion  of  this  truth.  Buddha  had  a 
realization  of  the  all-pervasiveness  of  God,  and 
because  he  had  not  the  advantage  of  the  unre- 
stricted light,  of  *the  true  Light  which  lighteth 


Union  with  God  105 

every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world,'  he  got  it 
crooked.  He  perceived  that  God  is  everywhere, 
that  He  is  the  end  and  the  source,  but  his  under- 
standing was  darkened  and  he  beheld  all  the  evil 
of  earthly  life,  and  being  horrified  at  it  he  pro- 
claimed that  Nirvana  or  nothingness  was  the  one 
end  to  be  desired.  There  was  just  enough  of  the 
spirit  of  truth  in  his  doctrine  to  have  held  and 
bound  millions  and  millions  of  men  to  the  doc- 
trine. The  real  truth  is  that  you  should  empty 
yourselves  of  self,  so  that  God  may  utterly  fill 
you  and  live  in  you,  ruling  your  hearts  and  minds 
and  spirits,  until  you  are  so  utterly  united  with 
Him  that  you  live  in  Him  and  He  in  you,  and  you 
thus  attain  to  your  full  individuality,  a  human 
soul  wherein  dwelleth  the  Almighty  Father,  the 
indwelling  God.  It  is  a  kind  of  nothingness,  be- 
cause when  you  perceive  God  to  be  all  in  all — 
above  all,  beyond  all,  yet  dwelling  in  all — you 
become  to  yourself  nothing,  and  then,  and  only 
then,  do  you  attain  to  your  true  self,  which  is  an 
instrument,  or  vessel,  wherewith  God  can  express 
Himself,  wherein  He  can  dwell. 

"When  I  was  talking  to  you  about  the  philoso- 
phies, old  and  new,  I  had  not  brought  the  thought 
which  I  am  trying  to  express  through  this  book 
to  such  development  as  enabled  me  to  show  you 


io6  The  One  Way 

what  I  hope  I  have  shown  you  now  about  the 
Buddhist  doctrine  of  Nirvana.  If  those  who  go 
to  bring  to  Buddhists  the  Light  of  the  world — 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  one  with  the  Father, 
very  God  of  very  God — ^would  recognize  the 
kernel  of  Eternal  truth  that  underlies  such  a  doc- 
trine, utterly  perverted  though  It  be,  the  difficulties 
of  converting  the  world  would  become  as  nothing. 
When  you  try  to  teach  the  truth  to  another,  don't 
argue  and  refute  his  present  belief,  but  show  him, 
whenever  it  is  possible,  that  his  present  opinion 
or  belief  is  only  a  part  of  the  larger  truth.  Don't 
for  one  minute  believe  that  God  Almighty,  the 
perfect  loving  Father  of  mankind,  has  allowed 
millions  and  millions  of  His  children  to  dwell  in 
utter  and  complete  ignorance  of  Himself.  He 
has  borne  witness  to  Himself  in  their  hearts,  and 
the  man  who  In  utter  ignorance  prays  to  a  God 
of  wood  or  stone,  but  prays  sincerely,  receives  an 
answer  from  'the  Father  who  seeth  in  secret.' 
That  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  erroneous  teach- 
ings have  had  such  power  over  the  minds  of  men. 
That  ignorant  man  who  prays  to  a  stone  or 
wooden  Image  Is  not  for  a  minute  to  be  con- 
demned. He  knows  no  better.  He  is  simply  fol- 
lowing out  the  Integral  law  of  his  nature.  Man 
being  the  child  of  God,  a  part  of  God,  needs  to 


Union  with  God  107 

seek  his  Father,  and  the  man  who  sincerely  seeks, 
no  matter  what  the  depths  of  his  ignorance  may 
be,  is  justified  and  will  be  counted  holy.  It  is 
the  man  who  knows  more  and  doesn't  try  to  seek 
God  who  is  to  be  condemned.  He  is  wilfully 
neglecting.  In  many  cases  he  has  let  his  Intellect 
get  in  his  way  until  he  is  blind.  Such  a  man  must 
take  the  consequences  of  his  wilful  neglect. 
Search  after  truth,  no  matter  how  often  It  eludes 
you. 

*'To  return  to  the  question  of  punishment:  It  Is 
a  matter  so  utterly  mishandled  In  your  present 
civilization,  so  needing  reform,  that  I  beg  you  to 
w^holly  revolutionize  your  methods  and  let  It  be 
done  only  In  a  spirit  of  love.  In  Christian  lands, 
the  way  that  prisons  and  reformatories  are  con- 
ducted Is  appalling.  Get  the  general  public  more 
closely  Into  touch  with  the  matter.  Help  them  to 
realize  that  the  criminal  Is  often  a  strong  good 
man  gone  astray.  Punishment  should  be  conse- 
quence, but  should  be  lovingly  dealt  out.  You 
must  at  present  have  jails  and  prisons  because  you 
have  among  you  many  defectives,  and  from  them 
spring  practically  all  the  great  criminals.  There 
are  many  who  are  defectives  whom  your  authori- 
ties do  not  recognize  as  such.  When  you  get  more 
of  God  Into  your  lives,  your  bodily  as  well  as  your 


io8  The  One  Way 

spiritual  health  will  improve  and  defectives  will 
gradually  disappear.  Most  wonderful  w^ork  is 
started  along  these  lines,  but  the  one  thing  that 
will  make  it  easy  to  carry  out  Is  to  realize,  ex- 
perience and  live  your  oneness  with  God.  Get 
all  your  power  from  Him.  You  live  in  houses 
with  water-works,  the  merest  baby  can  run  and 
turn  on  the  faucet  and  let  loose  a  flood.  Your 
grandparents  had  to  pump  and  carry  all  the  water 
and  therefore  used  it  more  sparingly,  and  in  earl- 
iest times  water  had  to  be  fetched,  often  from 
great  distances,  and  was  consequently  very  spar- 
ingly used.  In  all  the  ages  there  have  been,  here 
and  there,  great  souls  who  apprehended  God  and 
got  near  to  Him  and  received  from  Him  in  no 
small  measure  the  Water  of  Life.  The  time  has 
come  when  the  world  at  large  should  know  how 
to  attach  themselves  to  the  Source  and  receive 
the  Water  of  Life  freely.  'Whosoever  drinketh 
of  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  never 
thirst;  but  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall 
be  in  him  a  well  of  water  springing  up  into  ever- 
lasting Life.'  (John  4:14.)  You  have  got  to 
learn  how  absolutely  easy  and  simple  It  Is  to  obtain 
this  Water  of  Life,  the  unlimited  strength  and 
power  of  God  in  your  lives.  In  every  home  and 
every  heart,  you  must  learn  that  there  is  nothing 


Union  with  God  109 

to  do  but  an  act  as  simple  as  turning  the 
faucet. 

"Of  all  the  good  and  joyous  things  of  life  you 
need  not  give  up  one.  You  must  give  up  selfish- 
ness and  greed,  gluttony,  lust,  envy,  hatred, 
malice. 

"There  are  many  fearful  questions  to  be  met. 
There  is  but  one  solution  to  them  all.  The  Al- 
mighty Father,  the  indwelling  God,  the  King  of 
Love,  the  Prince  of  Peace.  It  Is  just  as  practical 
as  turning  the  spigot.  The  water  Is  there  but 
doesn't  come  out  until  you  open  the  cock.  There 
are  many  ways  of  taking  In  God's  power — by 
prayer  of  all  kinds,  by  study,  by  work,  through 
love  and  service  to  others — but  chlefest  of  all, 
at  this  time,  I  would  recommend  silent  prayer. 
Down  in  the  profound  depths  of  the  heart  of 
every  man  is  that  centre  where  God  dwells,  and 
in  order  to  experience  the  knowledge  and  joy  of 
companionship  with  Him,  you  have  got  to  learn 
to  be  silent.  'Be  still  and  know  that  I  am  God.' 
Psalms  46:10.  Some  will  Immediately  believe 
that  It  Is  a  doctrine  of  quietism,  but  there  Is  no 
exercise  of  the  intellect  so  difficult,  as  that  of  keep- 
ing still  without  thoughts,  and  yet  not  being  either 
sleepy  or  distrait,  to  be  absolutely  on  the  alert, 
yet  utterly  still,  to  empty  your  mind  yet  keep  it 


no  The  One  Way 

clear  and  under  perfect  poise.  'Lord,  give  me 
Samuel's  ear  to  hear.'  When  a  patient  is  too  tense 
in  muscle  he  must  be  taught  how  to  relax  his 
muscles.  At  first  It  is  not  easy.  If  he  has  gone  a 
step  farther  and  become  nervously  tense,  it  is  still 
more  difficult  to  teach  him  how  to  relax  that  nerv- 
ous tension.  In  neither  case  must  he  be  allowed 
to  relax  to  that  degree  where  he  touches  loss  of 
power.  He  must  lay  down  voluntarily  the  tension, 
and  become  free,  but  never  allow  that  freedom  to 
degenerate  into  loss  of  control.  When  disord- 
ered, the  nerves  are  more  difficult  to  control  than 
the  muscles,  and  the  mind  is  far  more  difficult  than 
either.  But  the  man  who  has  the  most  perfect 
mental  poise  and  control  can  relax  at  will,  volun- 
tarily laying  down  mental  effort,  but  he  can  also 
instantaneously  resume  mental  effort.  To  relax 
over  a  game  of  any  kind,  or  a  detective  story,  or 
a  play  at  the  theatre,  or  a  concert  according  to 
the  Individual  taste  is  easy,  but  to  relax  and  listen 
to  hear  what  God  will  say,  while  it  is  not  hard 
after  you  have  learned  how,  must  in  the  present 
state  of  the  race  be  cultivated,  at  first,  assiduously. 
Then,  when  once  attained,  you  can  learn  to  hear 
the  voice  of  God  at  all  times. 

"The  whole  of  life  would  become  simplified  if 
you  could  only  learn  to  work  In  harmony.    There 


Union  with  God  ill 

is  unlimited  power  at  your  command  If  you  will 
only  learn  to  use  it.  You  have  often  heard  of  'the 
music  of  the  spheres,'  and  most  of  you  have 
thought  of  it  as  a  beautiful  poetic  expression.  In 
reality  it  is  the  simple  fact  of  the  universe.  The 
harmony  of  those  parts  of  the  world  that  fulfill 
absolutely  the  will  of  God  is  perfect,  and  it  actu- 
ally produces  spiritual  sound  and  rhythm.  The 
greatest  musicians  have  caught  a  bit  of  the  sound 
and  given  you  an  imitation.  Now  when  any  part 
of  the  universe  wholly  fulfills  the  will  of  God  its 
spiritual  or  ethereal  existence  renders  it  visible  to 
those  of  us  who  have  passed  from  your  sphere.^ 


^August  2ist.     (/  ivant  to  knotjj  can  you  see  me?) 

"J ,  of  course  I  cannot  see  you.    I  know  how  you  have  felt 

about  the  writing,  it  is  not  ever  easy  but  you  must  not  neglect 
your  prayer  or  any  of  the  ways  you  know  of  approaching  to  God. 
It  is  a  dangerous  thing  because  unless  the  receiver  is  careful  they 
may  want  to  put  the  writing  in  the  place  of  spiritual  approaches 
to  God.  You  ought  to  be  able  to  understand  about  my  not  seeing 
you.  I  can  see,  but  not  things  that  have  no  eternal  existence.  It  is 
this  way,  I  can  see,  but  only  those  things  which  are  eternal.  I 
can  see  you,  the  real  you,  your  spirit.  Some  human  beings  are 
so  little  developed  spiritually  that  we  cannot  see  them  at  all. 
We  do  perceive  them  but  not  by  seeing." 

{Can  you  see  the  mountains  and  the  sea?) 

"Why  of  course  we  can,  because  they  are  in  one  sense  spir- 
itual." 

(Hoiv  are  the  mountains  more  spiritual  than  human  flesh? 
God  made  both.) 

"Yes.     But  though  the  mountains  will  perish  in  the  course  of 


112  The  One  Way 

We  can  neither  see  nor  touch  those  things  that 
have  neither  spiritual  nor  ethereal  existence.  All 
material  things  are  capable  of  ethereal  existence. 
The  well-known  feeling  so  often  experienced  on 
entering  a  great  cathedral,  of  a  sense  of  person- 
ality beyond  the  beauty  of  its  form,  color  or  pro- 
portions is  actual.  That  is  its  ethereal  existence 
and  is  to  the  cathedral  what  the  spirit  is  to  man. 

*'Man  being  the  greatest  of  God's  creatures  was 
given  dominion  over  the  earth,  and  man's  good  or 
evil  conduct  can  even  affect  the  weather.  That 
is,  man  is  so  powerful  and  is  capable  of  such  close 
relation  to  the  Father,  that  if  he  is  living  greatly 
out  of  harmony  with  God,  his  lack  of  harmony 
can  communicate  itself  to  external  conditions  and 
produce  discord  such  as  great  storms.  It  is  like 
this.  Divine  rhythm  is  a  medium,  as  it  were,  and 
along  that  medium  Nature  works,  and  when  man 


the  ages  they  are  fulfilling  God's  love  and  law.  They  are  not  re- 
sisting. The  mountains  have  no  free  will.  Men  have  free  will 
and  they  have  so  far,  in  many  cases,  perverted  themselves  as 
to  be  all  but  invisible  to  us  except  their  spirits,  but  not  so  the 
mountains  and  the  sea  and  nature  generally.  You  are  just 
right,  the  trees  and  flowers  and  nature  generally,  are  living  in 
harmony  and  fulfilling  God's  laws  and  in  that  consists  their 
true  beauty.     They  have  not  man's  free  will." 

{What  makes  freaks  of  nature  and  deformities  of  plants  or 
trees?) 

n  don't  know." 


Union  with  God  113 

works  in  harmony  with  the  Divine  rhythm  there  is 
no  discord;  but  let  man  throw  out  a  sufficient 
amount  of  discord,  he  may  jar  the  rhythm,  or  pro- 
ject discord  into  it,  which  might  produce  storms. 
The  fact  that  scientists  know  how  to  predict  the 
weather  does  not  alter  this  Truth.  As  you  have 
no  scientific  proof  of  this  it  may  make  a  great 
many  people  ready  to  distrust  me  and  my  book  to 
put  in  such  facts  as  these,  but  I  can  tell  you  that 
the  scientists  are  going  to  get  a  good  many  sur- 
prises before  they  get  through  their  experiences 
after  death,  and  I  don't  mind  giving  them  a  little 
surprise  now.  I  have  spoken  several  times  of  our 
difficulty  in  using  human  language  because  so  much 
that  we  would  like  to  tell  you  is  wholly  beyond 
the  power  of  human  language  to  express.  To 
those  men,  who  during  their  earthly  life,  have  ex- 
perienced a  very  little  of  the  perfect  rhythm  of  the 
universe  it  is  so  utterly  delicious  beyond  all  other 
joys  that  they  prize  it  as  their  highest  possession. 
It  can  be  felt  through  art,  music,  nature,  and  most 
of  all  through  religion.  If  I  might  so  express 
myself,  it  is  the  mechanical  means  whereby  your 
instinctive  natures  receive  direction  from  God. 
Many  men  and  women  have  experienced  it  in  one 
line  or  another,  but  if  you  can  learn  how  to  open 
yourself  to  the  experience  at  will  and  to  recognize 


114  The  One  Way 

It  with  your  mind  and  your  spirit,  there  is  no  limit 
to  what  you  and  we  can  do  together.  Of  course 
all  telepathic  experiences  work  along  this  line  of 
rhythm.  The  man  whose  sensitive  instinctive 
nature  is  so  trained  that,  like  the  dumb  creatures 
— beasts  and  birds — he  can  receive  direct  guidance 
from  his  Heavenly  Father  and  in  each  new  emer- 
gency of  life  be  shown  how  to  act,  has  a  lot  of 
advantage  over  the  man  who  must  reason  out  in 
his  own  mind  how  to  act  in  a  situation  which  con- 
tains unknown  factors.  But  the  man  who  stands 
in  the  commanding  position  is  he  who  is  trained, 
not  only  in  his  instinctive  or  soul  nature,  but  whose 
intellect  also  takes  its  full  part,  working  in  just 
conjunction  with  both  his  soul  and  heart  or  will. 

"God  Is  the  Beginning,  the  Ending,  the  Way, 
the  Means,  the  Source,  the  Prize,  the  Power.  He 
is  in  all  and  through  all  and  yet  you  can  turn  away 
from  Him  and  live  outside  the  rhythm  of  his  love. 
He  is  always  there  but  It  is  part  of  your  right  of 
free  will  to  live  out  of  harmony  with  the  Divine 
rhythm  if  you  choose  to  be  deterrent.  The 
simplest  child  can  receive  Him  In  his  heart  and  be 
actuated  by  Him  and  feel  the  thrill  of  the  rhythm 
of  the  universe,  and  the  wisest  and  greatest  must 
become  like  the  simplest  little  child  if  they  desire 
to  be  utterly  united  to  Him,  the  all-wise,  all-power- 


Union  with  God  115 

ful,  all-loving  Heavenly  Father.  You  all  need 
more  faith,  but  remember  that  faith  is  a  result  of 
obedience  to  God's  law.  So  many  people  Imagine 
that  faith  is  a  kind  of  heavenly  talent  bestowed 
upon  one  man  and  denied  to  another.  Faith  is  a 
result.  Any  one  can  obtain  It  who  will  faithfully, 
honestly  obey  and  prove  the  promises  of  God. 
We  here,  know  of  no  other  way  to  attain  to  faith, 
except  through  obedience,  and  I  know  that  If  you 
apply  to  those  persons  on  earth  who  have  attained 
to  great  faith  they  will  tell  you  the  same  thing. 
God  has  made  the  promises  and  He  never  fails  to 
keep  His  part.  Our  blessed  Lord  said,  'If  ye,  then 
being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your 
children,  how  much  more  shall  your  Heavenly 
Father  give  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask 
Him.'  (Luke  xi:i3.)  How  many  hundreds  of 
men  and  women  have  for  years  and  years  of  their 
lives  been  praying  for  the  gift  of  God's  holy 
spirit  and  yet  feel  that  they  have  not  greatly 
grown  in  their  knowledge  of  God?  Why  is  this? 
Because  they  have  feared  to  take  God  at  His  word 
and  believe  that  he  would  stand  up  to  His  promise. 
True  prayer  In  Christ's  name  must  be  In  harmony 
with  the  will  of  God.  It  Is  the  Father's  will  to 
pour  out  His  spirit  upon  you  and  make  you  abso- 
lutely one  with  Him.     'That  they  all  may  be  one, 


Ii6  The  One  Way 

as  thou,  Father  art  In  me,  and  I  In  thee;  that  they 
also  may  be  one  In  us.'  (John  xvii:2i.)  There- 
fore, that  prayer  for  the  spirit  of  God  Is  perfect 
and  is  certain  of  Its  results  If  you  will  go  one  step 
further  and  beheve  when  ye  ask  for  things  that 
ye  have  them.  In  the  eleventh  chapter  of  St. 
Mark's  gospel  (the  23rd  and  24th  verses)  our 
Lord  speaks  absolutely  clearly  about  this.  'What 
things  soever  ye  desire,  when  ye  pray  believe  that 
ye  receive  them  and  ye  shall  have  them.'  When 
He  said  that,  He  knew  what  He  was  saying,  and 
He  meant  just  that,  not  something  else.  When 
you  ask  God  to  pour  His  spirit  upon  you,  do  not 
hesitate  to  declare  with  the  most  absolute  convic- 
tion. The  power  and  the  presence  of  the  Almighty 
is  upon  me,  anointing  me  and  healing  me,  or  in- 
structing me  or  guiding  me,  but  do  not  then  jump 
up  and  immediately  set  about  doing  your  own 
sweet  will.  After  that  stay  still  in  absolute,  pro- 
found stillness  and  silence  and  hear  what  God  will 
say,  feel  the  rhythm  of  the  Divine  power  of  God, 
be  filled  with  the  water  of  life. 

"I  could  go  on  forever  reiterating  the  same 
things  that  have  been  told  you  through  the  ages. 
You  know  them  all.  I  have  nothing  new  to  tell 
you,  only  to  call  on  all  who  ever  cared  for  me  or 
my  words  to  hear  and  heed  what  I  say,  to  go  back 


Union  with  God  117 

to  all  the  sources  of  wisdom,  strength  and  power, 
but  most  of  all  to  the  One  Source  and  let  us  con- 
sciously act  together  for  the  good  of  the  whole 
universe." 


Aug.  23rd,  noon,   1920. 


Author's  Afterword 

^T^HIS  book  must  be  its  own  justification. 
^  Should  it  prove  of  value  to  anyone,  let  him 
receive  the  message.  I  make  no  claims  that  will 
convince  the  skeptical.  I  myself  know  that  I  did 
not  write  it  alone,  yet  I  am  quite  aware  that  my 
conviction  that  It  is  a  genuine  message  received  by 
means  of  automatic  writing  will  have  no  weight 
with  the  general  public.  Nevertheless,  for  those 
to  whom  it  is  of  interest,  it  may  be  best  for  me  to 
make  a  statement  of  how  I  happened  to  commence 
the  undertaking.  I  have  never  even  seen  a  ouija 
board  or  planchette.  Prior  to  November,  19 19, 
I  only  remember  one  occasion  on  which  I  ever 
tipped  a  table.  About  the  year  1894,  In  a  mixed 
company  In  a  boarding  house,  we  succeeded  in 
getting  some  one  who  acknowledged  to  being  bad, 
and  then  proved  to  be  the  father  of  a  young 
w^oman,  dressed  In  deep  mourning,  whose  great 
agitation  broke  up  the  seance.  This  served  to  in- 
crease my  general  belief  that  If  tables  could  really 
be  tipped  it  was  only  done  by  evil  spirits.  With 
them  I  wished  to  have  no  trafficking. 

119 


120  The  One  Way 

It  so  happened  I  had  never  read  a  book  by 
William  James — this  summer  (1920)  I  have  pur- 
posely avoided  doing  so.  Since  The  One  Way  was 
completed,  two  persons  who  have  read  the  manu- 
script have  said  that  it  did  not  seem  at  all  like  Mr. 
William  James. 

For  me,  it  would  rob  Eternity  of  much  of  the 
beauty  and  joy  that  I  anticipate,  if  we  are  to  re- 
main exactly  what  we  are  when  we  leave  this 
world.  Ten  years  of  travel  and  adventure  can 
change  a  man's  whole  point  of  view  in  this  world, 
and  I  feel  that  Mr.  William  James  might  have 
changed  a  great  deal  in  ten  years  in  Eternity. 

In  case  the  language  of  this  book  seems  so  un- 
like his  old  style  as  to  preclude  the  idea  of  his 
having  dictated  the  book,  let  me  explain  that  I  am 
convinced  that  he  dictates  the  idea  to  my  mind, 
but  does  not  dictate  each  word  or  sentence. 

My  mother,  who  was  the  most  joyous  Christian 
I  have  ever  known,  was  also  an  inveterate  traveler, 
who  took  the  greatest  delight  in  new  places,  and 
when  she  knew  she  was  going  on  a  journey  entered 
into  all  the  plans  with  the  keenest  zest.  From  her 
I  learned  to  take  a  most  intense  interest  in  heaven 
in  exactly  that  same  spirit  of  a  traveler.  She  read 
aloud  to  me  "The  Land  of  Darkness"  and  the 
"The  Land  of  Suspense,"  by  Mrs.  Oliphant.     I 


Author's  Afterword  I2l 

read  by  myself  the  rest  of  the  stories  of  "Seen 
and  Unseen,"  by  the  same  author.  Many  years 
later,  after  the  death  of  my  husband,  these  stories 
were  of  Intense  Interest  and  comfort  to  me.  I  de- 
voured them,  and  then  reread  them.  When  a  little 
later  a  friend  gave  me  a  little  book  called  Letters 
from  Julia,  purporting  to  be  written  by  a  dead 
woman  to  a  living  friend,  I  found  the  Idea  very 
repulsive.  Yet  now  I  am  Inclined  to  believe  that 
those  stories  of  Mrs.  Ollphant's  were  done  by 
automatic  writing.  What  Is  said  of  the  extreme 
rapidity  with  which  she  sometimes  wrote,  favors 
that  view.  She  says  in  her  biography:  "These 
stories  are  not  like  others.  I  can  only  produce 
them  when  they  come  to  me."  And  In  regard  to 
"The  Land  of  Suspense,"  she  says,  "I  think  It 
came  to  me  from  them."  Some  time  during  the 
last  two  years,  after  reading  some  book  which 
claimed  to  be  written  automatically  and  which  In- 
terested me  very  much,  I  said  to  my  daughter, 
"Whichever  of  us  dies  first,  if  automatic  writing 
is  In  accordance  with  God's  will,  we  will  do  It." 
I  do  not  remember  that  she  made  any  rejoinder — 
certainly  she  betrayed  no  special  interest. 

In  November,  19 19,  I  was  away  from  home  for 
a  couple  of  days.  When  I  returned,  my  daughter 
said:  "I  don't  know  what  you  will  say  when  you 


122  The  One  Way 

know  what  we  did  while  you  were  gone.  We 
tipped  the  table."  I  think  she  expected  me  to  ex- 
press strong  disapproval.  I  did  not  either  feel  or 
express  any  disapproval. 

Shortly  after  that,  a  cousin,  Miss  K.,  was  stay- 
ing with  us,  who  has  always  been  very  successful 
in  tipping  tables.  An  acquaintance  happened  In 
to  supper,  and  we  four  tipped  the  table.  This  last 
lady  had  no  knowledge  or  experience  In  the  mat- 
ter; she  only  half  believed,  and  her  curiosity  was 
roused.  When  she  left,  I  said  I  believe  that  there 
Is  only  one  right  way  to  do  this,  and  that  is  to 
use  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  say  that  we, 
being  sworn  servants  of  God,  will  have  nothing  to 
do  with  mischievous  spirits;  and  that  if  tipping 
tables  Is  contrary  to  the  will  of  God  we  will  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  It.  We  found  re- 
peatedly that  when  the  table  began  tipping — and 
knocking  clearly  to  say — "In  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  I  forbid  any  interference  from  mischievous 
spirits,"  stopped  It  dead.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
found  that  sometimes  the  table  assented  very  vig- 
orously, and  twice  we  got  a  reasonable  communi- 
cation. 

In  this  Afterword  I  shall  give  such  of  the 
communications  I  have  received  from  my  husband 


Author's  Afterword  123 

and  daughter  as  seem  of  general  interest.  My 
daughter  died  in  April,  1920,  after  an  Illness  of 
many  months,  during  which  time  I  knew,  that  so 
far  as  human  knowledge  and  skill  went,  there  was 
absolutely  no  hope.  Near  the  end  of  May  I  read 
Private  Dowding,  by  Tudor  Pole.  On  June  5th, 
while  reading  The  Abolishing  of  Death,  by  Basil 
King,  I  felt  that  I  could  try  to  write.  I  sat  down 
in  the  dark,  holding  the  pencil  so  lightly  that  I 
scarcely  touched  it,  and  holding  my  arm  free  above 
the  table.  I  got  in  the  faintest  writing,  and  with 
a  great  sense  of  effort,  "Mother,  mother. 
Mother,  I  love  you.  I  have  been  with  God  all 
the  time.  Father  loves  you  every  minute  of  the 
time."  Then,  for  the  first  time,  the  pencil  wrote 
my  name — which  has  since  then  become  the  way 

my  husband  always  addresses  me — "J ,  you 

are  to  teach — God  will  show  you.  God  has  a 
plan.     Be  content." 

I  wish  it  were  possible  to  describe  the  peace 
that  that  "Be  content"  brought  me. 

June  6th,  1920.  Taken  In  the  dark.  "Mother 
— Mother,  I  am  Pattie."  ^ 

{Can  I  ask  a  question?)^ 


^  Pattie  is  an  assumed  name. 


124  The  One  Way 

"Yes." 

{Have  you  been  waiting  to  try  and  get  mef) 

''No." 

{Could  you  call  me?) 

''No,  not  yet.  Be  content.  Good  night."  (Ob- 
viously this  might  be  just  my  subconscious  mind 
directing  my  pencil,  but  when  one  has  experienced 
the  sensation  of  the  pencil  being  controlled,  that 
idea  gives  no  explanation  of  the  peculiar  manner 
of  writing.  It  is  not  my  intention  to  argue  or  try 
to  convince  anyone.  If  there  is  a  message  for  me 
to  deliver,  all  that  I  have  to  do  is  to  give  It  faith- 
fully. You  will  see  from  what  follows  that  I  ac- 
knowledge my  doubts — I  give  them  In  full,  per- 
haps in  tiresome  detail,  because  there  are  certain 
persons  to  whom  these  technical  details  are  Im- 
portant.) 

June  9th,  8.30  P.M.  "Mother,  Mother,  I  am 
Pattle." 

{Do  you  understand  that  I  only  want  to  do 
God's  will?) 

"Yes." 

{Would  it  he  better  if  I  did  not  try  to  write?) 

"No." 

{Do  I  disturb  you  by  sitting  down  with  the 
pencil?) 

"No.     God  bless  you.     Good-night." 


Author's  Afterword  125 

*7 ,  God  blss— " 

"Mother,  you  are  no  mother." 

(This  last  seemed  puzzling.  It  is  impossible  to 
convey  the  sense  of  varying  personalities.) 

June  nth,  8.30  P.M.  ^'Mother,  Mother.  Yes. 
Tom  ^  will  pass  his  exams."  "Mother,  Mother, 
I  am  Pattie.    God  blss  you.     Good  night." 

"J ,  I  don't  want  you  to  write." 

{Who  are  yoii?) 

"N ."  (My  husband's  nickname  incor- 
rectly spelled.) 

{Is  it  because  I  am  tired  yoii  don't  want  me  to 
write?) 

"Yes." 

(Taken  in  semidark,  I  could  not  see  the  writing, 
but  I  could  see  my  hand.  I  seem  to  feel  or  know 
beforehand  what  word  I  am  going  to  write.  It 
might  all  come  from  my  subconscious  mind — but 
the  method  of  writing  is  queer.  To-night  I  in- 
tentionally took  control  of  the  pencil  and  finished 
one  letter,  and  then  it  was  a  good  many  seconds 
before  the  writing  began  again.) 

June  14th,  1.50  P.M.  "Mother,  Mother.  Yes, 
yes." 

{What  did  father  mean  when  he  told  me  not  to 
write?) 


^  Tom  is  an  assumed  name. 


126  The  One  Way 

"That  you  were  tired.     Yes.     Yes." 

{Are  you  saying  ^'Yes,  Yes/'  meaning  it  is 
you?) 

"Yes.  Mother,  we  want  you  to  learn  how  to 
write.  You  must  practise  every  day,  then  we  can 
talk  all  the  time." 

{In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour  of 
the  World,  we  will  only  write  according  to  God's 
will.) 

"Yes,  that  is  understood." 

{Are  you  happy?) 

"Mother,  Mother,  God  is  love.  Yes,  yes.  Get 
the  big  paper."  (This  was  in  reference  to  my 
thought  of  buying  wall  paper  such  as  Margaret 
Cameron  said  in  The  Seven  Purposes  that  she 
used.)  "You  are  no  mother —  Mother,  Mother, 
Mother — " 

{Did  you  mean  to  write  ^^You  are  no 
mother?'')  "My — my  Mother,  Mother  Mother 
Mother." 

"J ,  go  out  to  drive  now." 

(I  seem  to  know  in  my  mind  what  word  Is  going 
to   be  written — that  might  be   my   subconscious 

mind,  but  Pattie  and  N write  so  differently. 

I  have  laughed  aloud  with  joy  at  the  latter's  char- 
acteristic tone.) 

June  15th,  7  P.M.    "Mother,  Mother,  yes  yes." 


Author's  Afterword  127 

{Have  you  heard  all  the  things  I  have  been 
thinking  in  the  garden?) 

''No." 

{Has  Father?) 

'Tes." 

{IV  hy?) 

"Because  you  were  thinking  to  him.'''' 

{If  I  think  questions  to  Father,  cant  you  read 
my  mind?) 

"No,  Mother." 

{Is  it  hard  for  you  to  write  anything  besides 
Mother?) 

"Yes" — very  strongly  written. 

(Then  occurred  a  change  of  writing.  It  was, 
as  I  have  since  learned,  an  interference.)  Then 
Mother,  twelve  times  over  and  in  much  more 
powerful  and  free  writing.  This  seemed  to  me 
to  be  just  practice  of  writing  with  my  hand — then 
enormous  circles  made  like  lightning,  and  very 
strongly. 

{JVhat  does  that  mean?) 

^'Joy?  Joy?  Joy"  (written  nine  times).  "Mother, 
I  adore  you.  Mother,  do  you  know  I  am  Pattie? 
Yes  yes  yes" — nine  times.  "Mother,  I  love  you" 
— four  times. 

{Do  you  like  to  write  this  way,  Pattie?) 

"Mother,  I  love  to  write  with  your  hand." 


128  The  One  Way 

{Pattle  you  know  I  can't  help  doubting  a  little 
when  I  know  in  my  mind  what  the  pencil  is  going 
to  write;  explain  if  you  can.) 

"Mother,  I  can't  explain  that.  Mother,  you 
must  buy  plenty  of  soft  pencils  for  writing."  (/ 
must  here  have  taken  control  of  the  pencil,  for  she 
wrote — )  "Don't  you  write,  Mother;  it  inter- 
rupts me." 

{You  don't  cross  t's  or  dot  i's.) 

"No,  I  can't;  Mother  Mother.    Yes  Yes." 

{Can  you  write  out  what  it  is  to  which  you  write 
*'Yes^  Yesf")      (The  only  reply  was:) 

"Mother  Mother  Yes,  yes,  yes,  Mother." 

{JV^hy  does  father  stop  me  all  the  time?) 

"Because  at  present  it  is  not  good  for  you  to 
write  much." 

{Is  Father  there?) 

"Yes." 

{Can  I  ask  him  a  question?) 

"Yes." 

{Who  are  you?) 

"J ,  I  am  your  husband." 

{Does  our  daughter  understand  about  your  not 
wanting  me  to  write?) 
1  es. 

{Will  you  please  give  me  directions  not  only  for 
to-night?) 

"J ,  you   are  to  teach  and  you  must  get 


Author's  Afterword  129 

rested — practise  your  exercises  and  keep  out  of 
doors  all  that  Is  possible." 

{N ,  of  course  it  is  very  exciting  la  feel  that 

you  and  Pattie  can  zvrite  ivith  my  hand.  I  cati't 
help  feeling  as  if  you  were  waiting,  trying  to  com- 
municate if  I  don't  try.) 

"God  has  important  work  for  you  to  do,  and 
you  must  rest  first." 

{How  shall  I  know  when  I  may  write  again?) 

"Mother,  Mother,  Mother.  Father  wants  you 
to  rest  and  I  am  so  happy  here  I  understand." 

{Do  you  want  me^  not  to  write  again  till  I  get 
to ?) 

"Yes,  J ,  not  till  you  get  to  .     God 

bless  you  and  Tom.  .  .  ." 

(Then  came  Joy  circles.) 

{What  does  that  meanfy 

"That  means  joy  for  all  Eternity." 

(A^ ,  why  do  I  know  in  my  mind  before- 
hand what  the  pencil  will  write?) 

"I  can't  explain  until  later.  .  .  ." 

{God  keep  you,  my  daughter,) 

"Mother,  God  does  keep  me,  and  I  am  so 
happy,  only  I  want  you  to  be  happy,  too.  .  .  . 
Mother,  God  bless  you  and  Tom  all  the  time." 

"J .  .  .  Good  night.     Bless  you  now  and 

always." 

After  writing  the  above  I  wrote  a  letter  to  Tom, 


130  The  One  Way 

and  I  felt  that  my  pencil  was  controlled,  and  I 
wrote  excessively  rapidly,  but  I  said  what  I  wanted 
to  to  Tom,  not  what  some  one  else  wanted;  then 
I  thought  I  would  try  to  write  down  a  thought  that 
has  been  constantly  In  my  mind  lately.  I  began, 
and  I  wrote  faster  than  I  ever  wrote  in  my  life, 
the  following: 

June  15th,  7.45  P.M.  **Truth,  not  what  you 
consider  the  truth,  or  what  I  consider  the  truth, 
but  God's  eternal  verity,  has  in  it  such  inherent 
power  that  when  a  man  touches  it,  at  any  point,  he 
is  overwhelmed  by  the  strength  of  the  Truth,  and 
that  is  one  reason  why  men  who  are  studying 
Science  feel  unable  to  grasp  religious  truth.  It 
is  only  that  the  minds  of  most  men  are  so  finite 
that  they  cannot  grasp  more  than  one  small  aspect 
of  truth  and  that  one  atom  of  God's  eternal  truth 
is  so  overwhelmingly  true  that  they  feel  T  have 
found  truth,'  'This  is  truth,'  and  that  blinds  them 
to  all  sorts  of  other  aspects  of  truth.  You  can  put 
your  hand  before  your  eyes  and  blot  out  the  widest 
landscape  yet  the  landscape  is  there  all  the  time, 
only  you  don't  see  it.  Don't  think  because  you 
have  found  one  atom  of  truth  that  you  have  found 
it  all,  and  don't  be  afraid  of  the  Truth  wherever 
you  find  itJ* 

{Who  are  you?) 

*'I  am  not  your  husband  but  I  have  to  get  a 


Author's  Afterword  131 

chance  to  speak  through  you.  My  name  is 
William  James,  of  Cambridge,  Massachusetts, 
U.  S.  A. ;  the  man  who  thought  he  knew  a  lot 
while  he  was  on  earth,  and  now  that  he  has  learned 
a  little  he  wants  to  tell  the  people  on  earth  through 
you.  But  you  must  rest  now,  God  bless  you.  You 
have  got  a  tremendous  work  to  do  for  God  and 
his  children." 

{My  husband  told  me  to  go  to  bed  and  that  I 
must  rest  first.) 

"Your  husband  Is  right;  don't  you  write  another 
page  of  automatic  writing  for  him,  or  for  me, 

until  after  you  get  to  .     You  go  buy  about 

fifteen   rolls   of   the  best   paper,   wall   paper    at 

's,  on Street,  pay  30  cents  a  roll  for  It, 

and  don't  be  afraid  about  the  money  for  that  or 
anything  else  about  this  work,  for  God  will  pro- 
vide the  money;  and  now  you  go  to  bed,  and  God 
bless  you." 

The  sensation  of  this  writing  was  Intensely  ex- 
citing. Between  four  and  five  In  the  morning  of 
June  1 6th  I  woke  with  the  pulses  In  my  head 
beating  as  if  they  would  burst.  I  have  since  real- 
ized that  the  sensations  with  which  I  awoke  were 
such  as  have  frequently  been  described  by  those 
who  saw  or  perceived  some  supernatural  being. 
I  at  once  took  up  the  pencil,  which  wrote: 

"J ,  you  are  too  excited.     I  want  you  to  go 


132  The  One  Way 

to  sleep.  Give  me  your  hands.  It  is  just  as  actual 
as  that  day  fourteen  years  ago  at  the  hospital." 
(This  referred  to  a  time  when  I  was  very  ill  and 
intensely  nervous,  and  he  made  me  go  to  sleep.) 
*'Yield  yourself  to  me.  I  am  your  husband.  I 
love  you  with  all  my  heart  and  soul.  You  are 
mine,  and  belong  to  me  forever  and  ever.  Now 
lie  still  and  I  will  hold  your  hands,  and  God  will 

put  you  to  sleep."     (When  N writes  God's 

name  he  pauses,  and  writes  so  slowly  that  it  brings 
an  indescribable  sense  of  God's  nearness,  and  such 
reverence.) 

June  1 6th,  9.45  P.M.     (After  certain  directions 

about  resting,  I  got)  :  *'J ,  go  out  of  doors  and 

enjoy  God  works  alone  with  him." 

{Do  you  mean  don't  go  to  see  Mrs.  W, — a 
friend?) 

*'Yes,  go  now  quick,  don't  keep  asking  questions 
• — do  what  I  tell  you.    Obey.    God  bless  you." 

June  1 6th,  7.35  p.m.    "J ,  you  cannot  real^ 

ize  the  importance  of  the  work  you  are  to  do  and 
you  must  be  rested  first." 

June  17th,  7.45.     "J ,  you  are  not  keeping 

your  promise ;  don't  take  up  the  pencil  unless  you 
are  in  very  great  need  of  my  help ;  turn  to  God.  I 
will  be  helping  all  the  time.  You  must  be  rested, 
and  don't  hesitate  to  spend  the  money  to  make 


Author's  Afterword  133 

proper  arrangements  about  your  clothes  for  the 
summer.  Wear  white  all  the  time  and  don't  you 
wear  crepe." 

On  June  17th  my  husband  told  me  that  I  was 
not  keepuig  my  promise.  I  did  not  quite  realize 
that  I  had  made  a  promise  and  that  it  meant  I 
was  not  to  touch  a  pencil  with  "intent  of  automatic 
writing"  till  I  reached  .  But  I  now  appre- 
ciate that  this  period  of  enforced  quiet  will  prove 
of  the  greatest  possible  benefit  to  me — because 
through  it  I  am  realizing  that  the  highest  spiritual 
interpretation  is  the  only  one  I  can  follow  in  this 
work.  At  first  it  seemed  more  than  I  could  bear 
not  to  try  to  write.  The  intense  sense  of  my  hus- 
band's personality  (and  my  daughter's)  and  the 
extraordinary  change  not  only  of  writing,  but  of 
personality,  when  William  James  began  to  wTite, 
are  all  that  I  have  as  proof,  and  I  am  quite  well 
aware  that  that  is  proof  only  to  me — but  to  me 
the  proof  Is  so  complete  that  I  can  hardly  contain 
myself  for  joy.^  As  my  husband  has  spoken  of 
work  of  great  Importance  and  teaching,  and  as 
iW.  J.  ordered  me  to  buy  so  much  paper,  I  natur- 


*  The  sense  of  excitement  was  at  this  time  so  intense  that  I 
feel  that  I  could  easily  understand  how  a  person  might  lose  his 
mental  balance  over  this  automatic  writing;  temporarily,  all  the 
old  values  seem  thrown  out. 


134  The  One  Way 

ally  suppose  that  I  am  to  write  a  book.  It  may 
be  worth  noting  as  an  evidence  of  my  convic- 
tion that  I  instantly  obeyed  W.  J.,  a  complete 
stranger's,  direction,  not  to  consider  money  in 
regard  to  this  work,  and  have  planned  to  spend 
money  in  a  variety  of  ways  I  should  never  have 
dreamed  it  right  for  me  to  do,  and  to  alter  my 
summer  arrangements,  that  I  may  be  wholly  un- 
trammeled  for  the  work.  I  obeyed  my  husband 
at  once,  about  my  clothes.  I  mean  now  to  wear 
white  and  to  discard  crepe  entirely. 

On  Friday,  June  i8th,  the  story  of  a  great 
tragedy  was  told  me,  and  I  was  emotionally  very 
deeply  stirred,  so  that  I  scarcely  felt  as  if  I  knew 
what  I  was  doing.  I  knew  I  ought  to  go  home 
and  lie  down.  Instead,  I  went  to  choose  the  wall 
paper  ordered  by  W.  J.  I  could  not  decide  which 
kind  to  buy.  I  held  my  shopping  pencil  lightly; 
in  a  minute  it  wrote,  "take  the  grey,"  which  I  pro- 
ceeded to  do.  My  mind  was  in  a  turmoil;  scat- 
tered, not  concentrated.  I  think  it  is  the  condition 
referred  to  so  many  times  in  the  book  by  M.  Cam- 
eron, The  Seven  Purposes^  as  ^'divided  purpose." 
It  is  a  condition  of  indecision,  painfully  familiar 
to  many  people. 

Please  note  that  I  said  "I  knew''''  by  one  flash  of 
the  inner  voice  in  that  place  where  "we  know," 


Author's  Afterword  135 

that  I  should  go  home — call  It  conscience  If  you 
prefer.  I  had  made  the  human  plan  of  shopping. 
It  was  interrupted,  and  though  I  was  perfectly 
exhausted  I  carried  out  my  own  plan  and  will, 
partly  because  I  had  told  my  friend  I  was  going 
shopping  and  didn't  want  her  to  observe  a  change 
of  plan.  As  I  was  feeling  terribly  distressed,  I 
felt  I  had  my  husband's  permission  to  seek  his 
help  through  the  pencil.  Later,  when  I  did  grow 
calm,  I  was  not  satisfied  that  it  had  been  he  who 
answered  me;  then  the  conviction  grew  that  It  was 
not  his  answer. 

June  19th,  1920,  I  P.M.  Naturally  all  this  has 
been  In  my  mind  at  every  waking  minute,  and  I 
can  see  how  wise  was  the  order  from  my  husband 
not  to  write  till  after  I  get  to  ,  also  the  di- 
rection, "Turn  to  God."  In  the  Abolishing  of 
Death,  by  Basil  King,  there  is  a  chapter  called 
"The  New  Tongue" — i.e.,  the  language  of 
Thought.  This  morning  I  said:  at  present  I  am 
forbidden  to  do  the  automatic  writing,  but  I  can 
make  an  experiment  In  thought  language.  I  said 
to  myself.  If  I  went  out  In  the  automobile  and  was 
suddenly  killed,  I  should  presumably  soon  be  able 
to  practice — falteringly  enough,  no  doubt,  at  first 
— the  heavenly  language,  thought  exchange;  there 
would,  however,  have  been  no  real  change  in  my 


136  The  One  Way 

spirit;  hence  It  is  possible  that  I  could  try  to  re- 
ceive consciously  a  thought  now.  I  went  to  my 
husband's  old  desk  and  sent  a  thought  message 
to  my  husband  that  I  was  ready  to  receive  con- 
sciously a  message.  (I  don't  want  to  go  into  this 
thing  and  become  unbalanced  over  it.  I  know 
that  I  have  as  yet  no  proof  for  anyone  else  that 
all  this  does  not  come  from  my  subconscious  mind. 
For  my  self  the  only  proof  I  have  Is  an  over- 
whelming sense  of  certainty  that  I  have  been  in 
direct  communication  with  my  husband's  person- 
ality and  also  my  daughter's.)  I  then  "chained 
my  imagination,"  "entered  the  silence."  Nothing 
came,  and  I  thought  probably  I  am  not  capable 
yet.  Suddenly  I  saw  how  I  could  make  a  practical 
use  of  a  certain  desk  I  have  when  writing  on  the 
rolls  of  wall  paper.  I  had  already  so  far  per- 
fected a  plan  of  a  table  on  which  to  write,  that  I 
had  this  morning  thought  of   sending   an   exact 

paper  pattern  of  the  table  to  a  carpenter  at , 

so  that  the  table  would  be  ready  when  I  reached 
there.  In  a  flash  I  saw  how  the  desk  I  already 
have  could  be  made  to  serve  splendidly,  far  better 
than  the  table  I  had  planned.  I  am  writing  this 
down  now  because  if  it  was  a  message  I  want  it 
written  down.  Granted  that  we  are  so  made  as 
to  be  capable  of  receiving  these  thought  messages, 


Author's  Afterword  137 

It  seems  to  mc  it  will  be  a  great  step  In  advance 
to  do  so  consciously.^ 

June  20th,  Sunday  evening.  I  have  felt  con- 
vinced all  day  long  that  that  message  on  Friday 
was  an  Interference.  I  am  now  absolutely  con- 
vinced that  it  was  a  deterrent  or  mischievous 
spirit.  On  July  22d,  after  two  days  of  constant 
Interference,  I  referred  to  this  piece  of  manuscript 
and  found  that  the  handwriting  used  on  June  20th 
was  the  same.  This  seems  to  me  to  point  very 
clearly  to  the  danger  of  getting  under  the  power 
of  an  evil  or  deterrent  personality,  If  in  doing 
automatic  writing  one  is  actuated  by  curiosity  or 
any  light  motive. 

June  2 1  St.  That  interference  was  good  for  me, 
as  it  made  the  danger  so  evident. 

July    4th.      N In    control.   .   .  .   "J , 

some  one  tried  to  interfere.     J ,  always  pray 

If  the  pencil  gets  silly  and  runs  around." 

July  4th.  {Do  yoii  hear  all  my  thoughts  or  only 
those  I  clearly  direct  to  yoiif) 

"J .    I  do  not  hear  your  thoughts  in  words. 


^  Suddenly  on  July  19th  my  husband,   referring  to  the   desk, 

wrote,  "J ,  you  did  receive  that  thought.     Of  course  you  all 

receive  thoughts  both  good  and  bad  constantly  from  this  side; 
to  do  so  consciously  is  the  greatest  advance." 


138  The  One  Way 

I  feel  the  effects  of  them  as  they  affect  your  spirit- 
ual life.  .  .  ." 

(Later,  after  sending  a  clear  thought.)  (Can 
you  get  what  I  have  told  you?) 

"Yes,  I  do,  now  that  you  are  sending  the 
thought  clearly  to  me." 

July  5th,  1920,  1.45  P.M.     "J ,  don't  come 

unless  you  need  me."  (N.  B. — Here  the  writing 
was  extremely  small,  and  came  apparently  with 
great  difficulty.) 

July  5th,  5  P.M.     **J ,  trust  God  and  don't 

keep  coming  unnecessarily." 

{Why?) 

^'Because  you  must  live  your  life  with  God  just 
as  before,  growing  in  your  closeness  to  Him; 
otherwise  it  is  idle  use  of  the  pencil.  God  bless 
you." 

{This  I  take  to  mean  that  automatic  writing, 
unless  used  for  or  toward  a  spiritual  end,  is  abuse 
of  a  sacred  privilege.  It  is  not  to  he  used  as  idle, 
gratification.) 

In  the  two  above  cases  I  came  with  mental  ques- 
tions— not  for  the  pure  joy  of  talking  to  him. 

July  5th,  8.20  P.M.  (.  .  .  you  don^t  mind  my 
coming  just  for  joy,  do  you?) 

"J ...  I  want  to  write  with  your  hand 

every  second  of  the  day.    What  you  must  not  do 


Author's  Afterword  139 

is  to  come  to  me  with  questions  that  you  ought  to 
settle  for  yourself,  in  order  that  you  may  grow 
closer  to  God.  You  see,  this  is  your  most  impor- 
tant growing  time,  and  I  must  not  interrupt  your 
growth.  .  .  .  You  do  not  need  to  be  assured  that 
this  is  I,  your  own  husband;  you  know  it." 

J to  N .     July  7th,  4.30  P.M.      {Mr, 

James  said  the  other  night  the  doctor  wouldnt 
come,  and  he  came  at  once.    Why  was  that?) 

"I  don't  know;  he  made  a  mistake.  You  see, 
those  details  are  not  important." 

{Yes,  bin  they  are  very  confusing  to  us  here. 
Both  you  and  Pattie  said  Tom  would  pass  his 
exams,  and  he  failed  on  three  of  them}) 

''Sorry  we  made  a  mistake.  I  think  the  truth 
is  you  shouldn't  ask  us  specific  questions  of  small 
details;  they  seem  so  small  to  us  here." 

July  8th,   5.30.     ''J you  must  not  doubt, 

for  it  is  of  tremendous  importance  that  you 
should  believe  the  real  truth  of  this  w^hole  mat- 
ter." 

{Can't  you  tell  me  sofiiething  I  don't  know  and 
couldn't  write  alone  f) 

"J ,  I  can't  think  why  you  keep  asking  for 

proof.     You  know.     God  bless  you." 


*  Subsequently  he  passed  them  off.     Does  not  this  indicate  that 
they  are  oblivious  of  the  element  of  time? 


140  The  One  Way 

July  9th.     "J ,  I  want  to  talk  to  you  a 

minute.  We  have  been  starved  for  conscious  in- 
tercourse. ...  I  did  suggest  that  arrangement 
of  the  desk  and  you  did  understand.  .  .  .  Don't 
be  afraid  to  pray"  [corrected  to  believe]. 

{Now,  why  did  that  write  wrongly?) 

*'You  see  it  is  not  even  yet  quite  natural  for  me 
to  write  with  your  hand." 

July  loth.  {Do  I  have  to  decide  about  the 
stenographer  and  all  those  details  alone?) 

July  nth,   9   P.M.      "J ,  you  do  have  to 

decide  that.  That  is  part  of  your  human  life,  and 
it  would  weaken  you  if  I  decided  those  things  and 
it  is  essential  that  you  should  grow  in  your  spirit- 
ual life  In  order  to  do  the  work  to  which  God  has 
called  you." 

July  1 2th.     *'J .     I  am  with  you  all  the 

time  when  you  need  me.  I  too  need  to  go  away 
and  receive  God's  strength." 

{What  would  happen  if  I  called  you  when  you 
were  there?) 

"I  should  come  to  you  because  you  are  my 
appointed  work  now,  and  then  I  should  go  back 
to  worship  and  renewal  from  the  Father.'* 

July  13th,  7.30  A.M.  {Why  didn^t  you  answer 
that  question  above?) 

"Because  at  the  time  [when  it  was  asked]  I  had 


Author's  Afterword  141 

said  you  were  to  go  to  bed — and  I  said  it  not  to 
order  you,  but  because  it  was  right;  and  here  when 
we  know  a  thing  to  be  right  we  do  it,  wc  don't 
dally  round  till  we  get  good  and  ready." 

{Can  you  answer  that  question  now?) 

(I  had  asked  him  If  he  knew  about  a  certain 
spiritual  experience  I  once  had.)  "No  .  .  .  not 
even  a  husband  Interferes  between  the  Father  and 
his  child,  even  though  she  be  his  wife." 

July  13th,  7.30  A.M.  (/  know  nothing  about 
literary  work.  If  I  were  doing  a  hook  with  a 
person  here  I  should  consult  him.  Is  it  wrong  for 
me  to  ask  William  lames'  advice  about  a  stenog- 
rapher? He  wrote  lots  of  hooks  when  he  lived 
^here.) 

*'No  Indeed,  ask  him  by  all  means." 

{Is  it  just  as  easy  for  you  to  hear  my  questions 
without  my  writing  them  down?) 

"Yes,  but  I  think  you  need  to  write  them  for 
the  sake  of  record." 

July  13th,  7.30  P.M.  *^   .   .   It  Isn't  at  all  easy 

for  me  to  answ^er  questions.    J ,  don't  doubt, 

even  though  the  pencil  writes  what  you  think  your- 
self. If  Mr.  James  finds  in  your  mind  a  thought 
or  expression  that  you  feel  Is  your  own  and  that 
he  feels  is  the  right  one  to  carry  his  meaning,  he 
will  use  It." 


142  The  One  Way 

July  17th,  9.30  P.M.  (Can  deterrent  spirits  do 
things  to  our  bodies,  like  the  pain  in  my  foot,  to 
accomplish  their  deterrent  purposes?) 

"J ,  no  deterrent  spirit  can  interfere  if  you 

forbid  it." 

(What  makes  the  pain  in  my  foot,  and  how  can 
I  get  rid  of  it?) 

'^You  know  that  God  is  the  Source  of  all  health 
and  healing;  go  to  Him.  I  can't  help  when  the 
right  thing  is  for  you  to  go  to  Him.  It  is  not  that 
I  don't  love  you,  but  you  must  go  to  Him." 

(TV ,  if  you  were  on  earth  you  could  help 

me.  Even  though  I  ought  to  go  to  God,  you  could 
help,  I  understand  that  it  would  not  he  real  help 
if  I  turned  to  you,  who  are  his  child,  when  I  should 
go  to  Him,  the  Source,  Is  it  that  as  soon  as  I  go 
to  Him  you  will  begin  to  help?) 

''J ,  I  have  already  begun,  but  not  by  writ- 
ten words.  It  is  under  the  same  law  as  what  Mr. 
James  has  been  writing  today;  you  have  already 
the  revelation  of  God's  power  of  healing  and  you 
must  for  your  own  development  work  out  on  that. 
For  me  to  tell  you  in  words  what  you  should  learn' 
by  living  out  your  Faith  in  God's  healing  power, 
would  be,  for  me,  a  deterrent  act."  ^ 


*  "Deterrent"   is   used  throughout  the  book  where  we   should 
use  evil  or  wrong. 


Author's  Afterword  143 

July  24th,  9  P.M.     "J ,  you  know  that  I  am 

your  husband;  you  know  that  you  have  been  hear- 
ing from  me.  Don't  doubt;  pray.  You  have  an 
Important  work  to  do.  If  I  used  your  mode  of 
expression  I  should  say  I  am  so  proud  that  you 
have  been  chosen  for  this  work,  but  here  we  know 
that  there  Is  no  room  for  pride;  it  Is  just  that  the 
Father's  love  is  working  through  you." 

{Is  it  possible  for  you  to  explain  to  me  why  I 
understand  beforehand  what  the  pencil  will 
write?) 

"But  you  know  already;  the  language  we  use 
here  Is  the  thought  language.  And  when  you 
empty  your  mind  for  me  to  control  It,  you  hear 
my  thought,  and  my  thought  in  your  mind  makes 
your  mind  control  the  pencil.  I  can't  touch  the 
pencil.  I  do  it  through  your  mind.  It  is  a  very 
subtle  thing;  I  know  that  it  Is  hard  for  you  to 

understand.     You  must  trust.     J ,  you  know 

you  can  trust  me." 

July  30th,  12.30.  {How  do  you  know  when  I 
take  tip  the  pencil?) 

*'Why  it  is  somewhat  as  you  would  know  if 
Tom  called  you.  If  you  were  busy  and  he  came 
in  and  called,  you  would  answer.  If  I  were  away 
from  you,  I  should  come.  Now  that  Is  human 
language  and  I  have  to  use  it  because  it  is  all  you 
understand,   but   to   us,    space,    as   you   know   it, 


144  The  One  Way 

doesn't  exist;  time  as  you  know  it,  doesn't  exist; 
and  yet — the  truth  is,  here  is  one  of  those  chasms 
we  can't  bridge  because  you  simply  can't  under- 
stand. You  know  height,  depth  and  breadth;  if 
I  tried  to  explain  another  dimension  you  couldn't 
understand,  and  you  have  to  accept  that  there  is  a 
lot  you  can't  understand.  You  have,  already  sup- 
plied you,  all  the  data  that  is  essential  for  your 
human  lives.  Live  those  to  the  fullest;  then  when 
you  get  here  you'll  be  fully  prepared  for  this  life. 
Those  who  come  here  not  having  tried  to  live  to 
the  fullest  that  which  has  been  supplied  to  them 
in  their  earthly  life,  are  like  maimed  people  with 
you." 

{Do  you  mean  that  a  person  without  education 
— whose  earthly  life  had  been  almost  completely 
hare  of  opportunities^  yet  who  had  tried  to  ad- 
vance all  they  could  or  been  as  good  as  they  knew 
how,  might,  after  death,  be  much  more  spiritually 
advanced  than  a  person  of  great  education  and  op- 
portunities who  had  been  less  faithful  in  trying 
to  do  right?) 

"Exactly;  the  last  shall  be  first  and  the  first 
last;  the  real  advancement  is  gauged  according  to 
integrity  of  intention  followed  by  sincerity  of 
action." 

{Do  I  trouble  you  by  controlling  the  pencil  too 
much?) 


Author's  Afterword  145 

"Why,  you  do  at  times.  If  you  could  only  over- 
come your  doubts.  You  do  know  you  have  been  in 
constant  touch  with  your  husband.  Why  doubt? 
Pray.  The  whole  world  is  in  ferment  because 
it  does  not  know  its  own  mind.  So  few  people  face 
facts.  They  dodge  and  misstate,  and  are  not 
honest  with  themselves.  They  do  what  is  wrong 
and  then  they  condone  and  excuse.  Right  is  right 
and  wrong  is  wrong,  and  God  made  man  in  such 
a  way  that  if  he  had  not  perverted  his  powers 
he  could  discern  clearly,  quickly,  what  Is  the  right 
in  each  case.  And  when  you  know  what  is  right, 
do  it  and  do  it  quick.  I  know  all  you  immediately 
want  to  bring  up  about  the  situations  where  cir- 
cumstances or  other  people  who  are  deterrent,  or 
evil,  prevent  your  doing  the  ideal  right.  God 
knows  all  your  circumstances  and  there  Is  a  right 
thing  for  each  one  of  you  to  do  In  every  circum- 
stance, and  if  you  will  learn  how  to  use  your  God- 
given  instincts  and  trust  to  them,  the  change  in 
you  and  in  the  life  of  the  whole  world  will  seem 
nothing  less  than  miraculous.  I  am  not  dreaming. 
I  am  telling  you  of  what  I  know.  The  only  way 
to  do  It  Is  to  get  closer  to  the  heart  of  the  universe 
which  is  God,  your  Father.  Learn  how  to  let 
Him  dwell  in  you  and  reign  In  you.  You  have  all 
the  data.     Use  it  and  stop  doubting." 


NOTE    TO    THIS   EDITION 

When  this  book  was  prepared  for  private  pub- 
licatioriy  it  seemed  to  me  impossible  to  use  my 
daughter's  name.  At  that  time.  I  hoped  it  would 
not  be  necessary  to  publish  under  my  own  name. 
Therefore  I  called  her  a  son  and  substituted  the 
name  of  Philip.  The  book  is  now  corrected  to  fit 
the  fact.  Pattie  and  Tom,  however,  are  assumed 
names. 

Jane  Revere  Burke. 

November,  1921. 


146 


INDEX 

Agreement,  points  of,  should  be  emphasized,  85. 

Amanuensis,  the  doubts  of  our,  18,  45,  124,  145. 

Author  of  this  book,  autobiographic  notes  of,  v,  119,  121,  122, 
123,  131,  132,  138,  139. 

Automatic  writing,  remarks  on,  8,  9,  18,  45,  120,  121,  123,  124, 
129,  130,  133.    Note,  138,  141,  143. 

Automatic  writing,  to  be  successful  the  writer  must  be  at- 
tuned, 55. 

Bible,  the,  1,  2,  12,  13,  18,  60. 
Buddhism,  104,  105,  106. 

Cameron,  Margaret,  2,  14,  126,  134. 
Christ,  life  and  teaching  of,  i,  45. 
Christianity  is  the  final  religion,  22.    Cf.  17. 
Christian  Science,  63.    Cf.  100,  loi,  142. 
Communion  of  Saints,  the,  63,  64. 

Control,  the,  dictates  ideas  not  words,  26,  27,  45,  46,  120,  123, 
129,  141,  143. 

Dead,  prayer  for  the,  63. 

Death  as  God  originally  planned  it,  99,  100. 

Defectives,  107,  108. 

Deterrent  influences,   18,  32,  34,  35,   37,   66,   6-jy  77,  78,  84,  92, 

93,  96,  122,  127,  134,  135,  137,  142. 
Dogmas,  the  great,  not  to  be  discarded,  68,  69. 
Doctrines,  68,  69,  83. 
Doubts  of  the  automatic  writer,  17. 
Dimension,  fourth,   144. 

Education,  without  Christianity,  21. 
Evil,  existence  of,  explained,  99. 

147 


148  Index 

Facts  must  be  faced,  which  few  do,  145. 

Faith  is  a  result,  115. 

Familiar  Spirits  in  the  Bible,  60. 

Fluid,  learn  to  be,  3,  44,  45,  62,  63,  66,    Cf.  82,  83. 

Fourth  dimension,  144. 

Gospels,  the,  how  alone  their  truth  can  be  proved,  1,  2,  7,  22. 
Growing  in  closeness  to  God,  13,  16,  138,  139,  140,  142. 

Healing,  spiritual,  in  the  Bible,  24,  25,  26,  27,  39,  40,  107,  108, 
142. 

Idolatry,  93,  94,  106. 

Individual  experiences,  139,  140. 

Instincts,  training  of  the,  16,  17,  47,  48,  49,  50,  51,  52,  53,  67,  68, 

113,  114,  145.    Cf.  2. 
Intellect,  part  of  the,  in  conjunction  with  our  instincts,  17,  113, 

114. 
Interference,  18,  32,  34,  35,  38,  122,  127,  134,  135,  137,  142  note. 
Italics,  how  used  in  this  book,  6  noU, 

James,    Professor    William,    letters    and    magazine    article    of, 

quoted,  vii,  viii,  ix. 
James,   Professor  William,   the  attitude   of  his   family  toward 

this  book,  vii. 
James,  Professor  William,  the  author  of  this  book  has  not  read 

his  writings,  120. 

League  of  Nations,  a,  is  absolutely  necessary,  76,  77. 

Medicine,  39. 
Millennium,  the,  74 

Missions,  the  importance  of  Christian,  20,  21,  22. 
Mistakes,  correct  by  control  in  automatic  writing,  xv,  46,  140. 
Cf.  27. 

Names,  why  hard  to  get  through,  xix,  37,  38. 
Nirvana,  104,  105,  106. 


Index  14.9 


OUphant,  Mrs.,  her  psychic  stories,  X2i. 
Opportunities,  use  of,  ou  Earth,  84,  144. 

Pain,  63,  100,  loi.     Cf.  27,  28,  39. 

Prayer,  14,  35,  61,  69,  70. 

Prayer,  silent,   14,   109. 

Prayer  for  the  dead,  63,  64. 

Prayer  to  the  Saints  is  an  abuse,  63. 

Protestant  world,  a  mistake  of  the,  63. 

Questions,  no  answers  given  to,  when  one  ought  to  settle  them 
oneself,  6,  7,  60,  139,  142. 

Relax,  no. 

Religion,  Christianity  is  the  final,  22.     Cf.  144,  145. 
Religion  'versus  Science,  6,  7,  23,  39,  40,  130. 
Repentance,  deathbed,  102,  103. 

Scientists,  why  religious  truth  is  hard  for,  6,  7,  23,  39,  40,  130. 

Seven  Purposes,  remarks  on  the  book,  2,  14,  126,  134. 

Silent  prayer,  14,  109. 

Spirits,  familiar,  in  the  Bible,  60. 

Spiritual  healing,  24,  25,  26,  27,  39,  40,  107,  108,  142. 

Soul,  26,  48,  49,  50.    Cf.  H2,  113. 

Subconscious,  the,  48. 

Subliminal,  the,  26,  40. 

Table-tipping,  119,  121. 

Telepathy,  xiv,  113,  114,  143.     Cf.  9,  26,  42. 

Truth,  scientific,  versus  religious,  6,  7,  23,  39,  40,  130. 

Universe,  the  life  of  God's  whole,  19  a  unit,  24. 
Universe,  the,  a  titanic  struggle  lies  ahead,  15. 

Vittoz,  Dr.  Roger,  10,  24,  25,  47,  48,  49,  50,  51,  109,  no. 

War,  the  greatest,  is  yet  to  come,  11,  15,  91. 

War,  America  in  the  late,  71. 

Will,  true  acts  of,  10,  24,  25,  47,  48,  49,  50,  51,  109,  no. 


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